Transportation in Thailand 4.0

We're making great progress with public and private infrastructure for the transportation needs of Thailand. With expansion of the skytrain and underground systems well under way to serve the further reaches of the greater Bangkok region we will soon benefit from an integrated travel card, the Mangmoom (or Spider) card, similar to Octopus, Oyster, Orca and Snapper in other countries around the world.

The layered transport system includes motorbike taxis, local loop pick ups, buses and trains. For various reasons the mini bus fleet fills an important part of this transport network but we suffer from a seasonal capacity problem.

This had a tragic consequence around New Year when one van crashed into a pickup truck killing 25 people in all. Part of the reason for this was the van driver had been driving for 31 hours as the number of people looking to get to Bangkok created a demand side need for transport.

This is a pattern that is often repeated at peak times not only here in Thailand but other countries around the world. It highlights a fragility in the entire travel network that can be quickly disrupted. You only have to think back to storms in Taiwan, snow in the US, volcanoes in Iceland, airline strikes to see how quickly the network can unravel.

The immediate reaction has been the suggestion of banning minivans from intercity routes to be replaced with buses/coaches. We should remember that the vans exist for a reason and one of two things may happen from such an action. Firstly, people may end up spending longer sitting on a bus that has many stops. Secondly, underserved areas that don't have the numbers to justify a bus service will not get a connection. This will ultimately result in the re-emergence of minivans, either a black market or regulated.

One response could be a radical improvement plan for State Railways of Thailand (SRT) on service quality and reliability. This would then create hubs that vans could service with shorter routes to connect the less well served areas. This hub and spoke model could even be operated by SRT as an additional revenue stream.

An equally valid response is to seize the opportunity for better governance of the existing minivan network. The government is already looking at OBD plugin units like those used in usage based insurance for cars. This will provide telemetry on speed and distance traveled. If used in the same way as insurance companies it could also assess the riskiness of driving behaviour which would help with driver monitoring.

The standard approach is to have these fitted to the vehicle so it leaves a question to who is driving and controlling the number of hours an individual can drive in a 24 hour period. Part of the answer may be the work that Microsoft has done with Uber and the "driver selfie" security capability. This simple identity check matches the driver's face to records and would go a long way to making sure driving hours are not exceeded.

Ultimately this could see features like disabling engine start remotely if the driver has exceeded their number of hours. In the future as the technology that is in every Volvo car becomes more mainstream we could also see features like the Red Key being deployed to transport systems to increase the overall safety. Volvo's Red Key allows functions like speed, distance from the vehicle in front, entertainment system sound to be set and managed.

What does a modern transport system look like for a country like Thailand? It has to cope with seasonal demand. If has to be affordable for the majority of citizens. It has to reach to distant parts of the country that are underserved by trains and airports. Regardless of the make up of the network it has to be safe and that is not solely in the control of the public transport providers. It requires the collaboration and compatibility of all the road users, maybe something else to tackle at the same time?