PHUKET: A passenger who wants to go to Phuket International Airport from the Phuket beach of Karon will be asked to pay 1200 baht by a local taxi driver.
The cost of booking a flight from Phuket to Bangkok on Nok Air for this Thursday is 1207 baht.
Phuket's taxi and tuk-tuk fares remain among the most costly on the planet. Taxis and tuk-tuks on Phuket are still about six times more expensive than the taxis in Bangkok.
Travellers who come via the capital to holiday on Phuket are shocked by the difference in prices - and there appears to be no rational explanation.
One difficulty is that the taxi and tuk-tuk drivers on Phuket continue to manage to persuade authorities that passengers should not only pay the fare for the trip to their destination, but also pay the fare for the trip the cabbie takes alone back to his starting point, at the local rank.
The two-strikes fares on Phuket apply because taxi drivers decades ago agreed not to make pickups in each other's villages.
The agreement, designed to avoid disputes, has long passed its use-by date in the 21st century, where reasonable-cost metered taxis and call centres can be found in most Asian destinations.
All taxis and tuk-tuks should be allowed to pick up passengers all over the island.
About a decade ago, Phuket introduced metered taxis with the intention of converting more cabs to use that system, over time.
The other drivers resisted and instead boosted their set fares by using their monopoly power in disputes.
In the end, the meter taxi drivers opted to increase their fares to match those of the non-meter taxis.
The intervention of the military in Thailand has come at a perfect time and enabled regional police and Phuket authorities to break the ''mafia'' hold of the taxi and tuk-tuk drivers in some popular west coast Phuket holiday spots.
Reforms are expected to continue. But Phuket remains probably the only place in the developing world where the cost of a taxi to the airport is still about the same price as an 80-minute flight.
Driving a taxi or a tuk-tuk on Phuket is so lucrative that many young men aspire to buy a car and plan a future as a driver based on a couple of trips per day. When you can earn as much as a university graduate by doing an unskilled job, why not?
The military needs to retune the social aspirations of the island's children to provide graduates with the incentive to apply themselves as teachers, doctors or lawyers, and to accurate reflect in income the value of taxi driving as a living.
A survey conducted on June 28 across cities in Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Russia, the US and the Britain found Christchurch to have the highest average taxi fare in dollars per kilometre at Australia $4.20 per kilometre.
Phuket's fares are extraordinary for a developing country because of the two-way penalty. The shock they deliver to tourists who also visit Bangkok is often a reason why they chose a different destination the next time.
As Phuket's public transport system is reformed, Phuketwan suggests that the military and local authorities speedily cut the present fares in half so that residents can, for the first time in their lives, afford to catch a cab occasionally.
It should be 2024 before an increase in fares is warranted.
The cost of booking a flight from Phuket to Bangkok on Nok Air for this Thursday is 1207 baht.
Phuket's taxi and tuk-tuk fares remain among the most costly on the planet. Taxis and tuk-tuks on Phuket are still about six times more expensive than the taxis in Bangkok.
Travellers who come via the capital to holiday on Phuket are shocked by the difference in prices - and there appears to be no rational explanation.
One difficulty is that the taxi and tuk-tuk drivers on Phuket continue to manage to persuade authorities that passengers should not only pay the fare for the trip to their destination, but also pay the fare for the trip the cabbie takes alone back to his starting point, at the local rank.
The two-strikes fares on Phuket apply because taxi drivers decades ago agreed not to make pickups in each other's villages.
The agreement, designed to avoid disputes, has long passed its use-by date in the 21st century, where reasonable-cost metered taxis and call centres can be found in most Asian destinations.
All taxis and tuk-tuks should be allowed to pick up passengers all over the island.
About a decade ago, Phuket introduced metered taxis with the intention of converting more cabs to use that system, over time.
The other drivers resisted and instead boosted their set fares by using their monopoly power in disputes.
In the end, the meter taxi drivers opted to increase their fares to match those of the non-meter taxis.
The intervention of the military in Thailand has come at a perfect time and enabled regional police and Phuket authorities to break the ''mafia'' hold of the taxi and tuk-tuk drivers in some popular west coast Phuket holiday spots.
Reforms are expected to continue. But Phuket remains probably the only place in the developing world where the cost of a taxi to the airport is still about the same price as an 80-minute flight.
Driving a taxi or a tuk-tuk on Phuket is so lucrative that many young men aspire to buy a car and plan a future as a driver based on a couple of trips per day. When you can earn as much as a university graduate by doing an unskilled job, why not?
The military needs to retune the social aspirations of the island's children to provide graduates with the incentive to apply themselves as teachers, doctors or lawyers, and to accurate reflect in income the value of taxi driving as a living.
A survey conducted on June 28 across cities in Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Russia, the US and the Britain found Christchurch to have the highest average taxi fare in dollars per kilometre at Australia $4.20 per kilometre.
Phuket's fares are extraordinary for a developing country because of the two-way penalty. The shock they deliver to tourists who also visit Bangkok is often a reason why they chose a different destination the next time.
As Phuket's public transport system is reformed, Phuketwan suggests that the military and local authorities speedily cut the present fares in half so that residents can, for the first time in their lives, afford to catch a cab occasionally.
It should be 2024 before an increase in fares is warranted.
Restricting the numbers of taxis / tuk tuks on this island must be a priority 900 in patong alone is a complete farce how can that possibly be viable .
Pricing policy should never be left up to these thoughtless drivers they should be TOLD the tariff laid down by local officials from the new guard .I'm sure they won't be putting up any blockades or issuing threats like in the past not now the army is calling the shots the armed forces aren't intimidated.
Posted by Scunner on July 13, 2014 04:04