20-baht fare on Red, Purple Line sections to start in 3 months
The Transport Ministry will need six months to gather information from operating partners on capping fares for all electric trains at 20 baht before it can start negotiations, Transport Minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit said on Monday.
Suriya was answering Move Forward MP Surachet Pravinvongvuth, who voiced concern about the measure’s feasibility during the parliament meeting on Monday, when the cabinet announced its key policies to the Parliament.
Surachet pointed out that the measure, which was promised by the Pheu Thai Party during the general election, was not included in the cabinet’s policy statement and there was no clear deadline as to when it would be implemented.
Last week Suriya implied when speaking to the press that the project could be pushed back two years, explaining that the ministry must first focus on investment promotion and reducing logistics costs.
On Monday, however, Suriya said the ministry would start collecting information on the concession contracts of all operators on all routes, and would establish a committee to handle the negotiations with each of the operators.
This process would take about six months, after which he expected the 20-baht train fare policy to be implemented across all routes ‘immediately’, said Suriya.
For the state-run train routes, namely the Red Line’s Taling Chan-Rangsit section (13 stations), and the Purple Line’s Bang Sue-Khlong Bang Phai section (16 stations), the 20-baht fare cap can be implemented in three months and will be a New Year present for all Thais, said the minister.
The current fares on these sections of the Red and Purple lines range from 14 to 42 baht.
Suriya also promised to officially invite Surachet to a meeting at the ministry to update him on the latest progress of the project, after Surachet claimed that he had never been officially invited by the ministry.
