Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said today that the maximum price of a BTS train ticket may be increased from Bt47 to Bt65 , to offset the losses being borne by the city’s administration in helping to ease the financial burden of commuters.
He told the media that the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has hired BTS to operate the Green Line service at a cost of about Bt8 billion annually, but ticket revenues amount to just two billion baht per annum, meaning that the city is having to bear a 6 billion baht loss.
He pointed out that having to use its reserve funds, which is taxpayers’ money, to subsidise train fares, is unfair to the many taxpayers who never or rarely use the Green Line train service.
To be fair to all taxpayers in Bangkok, the governor hinted that the train fair may be adjusted to a maximum of 65 baht for the entire length of the line, to reflect the actual operating costs.
He said that the fare for short trips, currently set at a minimum of 17 baht, may be reduced though.
Chadchart maintains that train fares are a separate issue from the debt that the BMA owes to BTS for the operation of the train service, adding that the BMA will be able to pay off 32 billion baht of the debt by the end of this month, as ordered by the Central Administrative Court.
After the settlement of this portion of debt, he said that there will be about 6 billion baht left in the city’s reserve fund, which must be used carefully and wisely.
The Anutin administration has put the Pheu Thai-led government’s plan, to set the train fares for all routes in Bangkok and suburban areas at 20 baht per trip, regardless of distance travelled, on hold.
