PHUKET: Efforts continue to be made to provide Phuket with a public transport system. But it's difficult to imagine a tram service down the holiday island's main artery attracting customers.
As someone who grew up in two cities where trams work well in carrying large numbers of people with efficiency, I am a great lover of this simple, effective means of transport.
Will trams work well on Phuket? No way.
The big issue is that most people have already been forced to adopt an alternative means of transport. Phuket's preferred means of transport.
The motorcycle.
Anyone who has spent three days on Phuket can tell you that island people do not walk. They ride.
They ride on a motorcycle and they board it as soon as possible on leaving their home, office or school.
They do not dismount until they are as close as they can possibly get to their destination.
Now, as if persuaded by some miracle, transport officials believe that a tram service will change all that.
People will suddenly decide to give up the convenience and the speed of their motorcycle for the dependable and - let's not kid anyone - slow tram service.
It a social change miracle that is just not going to happen.
And by the way, someone should tell the authorities that buses carrying people onto the island from Bangkok and from other provinces already travel down the island to the Phuket City terminus.
Making them disembark to catch the much-slower tram service wouldn't work.
Most people arriving at Phuket International Airport will continue to head for Phuket's west coast. They're in a hurry.
A journey through Phuket City on the east coast is a diversion they do not need to make. So they pay hideous prices for taxis . . .
In Melbourne, Australia's tram capital, the network stretches out across the inner suburbs.
It is at its most effective and at its most efficient in carrying commuters to and from their jobs in the city centre, during peak hours.
Phuket, I hope the transport officials realise, does not need a transport network to carry commuters to one single city centre.
Workers are heading for resorts and other businesses at different places all over the island. There is no single, common destination.
Schools too are scattered across all of Phuket. Phuket is a holiday island, not an urban spread with a single city centre.
How many resorts are along the tram route? Very few.
For the billions of baht that are to be spent on this project to be justified, transport officials must do proper research on the island's demographics and on its social habits.
You know what? I don't believe either piece of essential research has been done.
In focusing as the transport officials did today on the one-way system that might be needed in Old Phuket Town if the 60-kilometre tram from the island's north to south gets the go-ahead, they have proved that they are putting the cart before the horse.
And a cart with a horse behind it would be just about as effective as a Phuket people-mover as a fixed-track tram.
I am not entirely gloomy about Phuket public transport.
The pink seung taw buses that crisscross Phuket City provide an excellent service for the very young, the very old and the very poor.
But surely the transport officials realise that if these people had motorcycles, that's what they would be using?
As a lover of trams, my advice to the transport officials would be to start with the demographics and the island's real public transport needs and work from there.
But don't forget that social habit category.
Replacing the motorcycle as the preferred form of transport on Phuket is the transport officials' ''Impossible Dream.''
To get Phuket people onto trams, you first have to get them off their motorcycles. Good luck with that.
As someone who grew up in two cities where trams work well in carrying large numbers of people with efficiency, I am a great lover of this simple, effective means of transport.
Will trams work well on Phuket? No way.
The big issue is that most people have already been forced to adopt an alternative means of transport. Phuket's preferred means of transport.
The motorcycle.
Anyone who has spent three days on Phuket can tell you that island people do not walk. They ride.
They ride on a motorcycle and they board it as soon as possible on leaving their home, office or school.
They do not dismount until they are as close as they can possibly get to their destination.
Now, as if persuaded by some miracle, transport officials believe that a tram service will change all that.
People will suddenly decide to give up the convenience and the speed of their motorcycle for the dependable and - let's not kid anyone - slow tram service.
It a social change miracle that is just not going to happen.
And by the way, someone should tell the authorities that buses carrying people onto the island from Bangkok and from other provinces already travel down the island to the Phuket City terminus.
Making them disembark to catch the much-slower tram service wouldn't work.
Most people arriving at Phuket International Airport will continue to head for Phuket's west coast. They're in a hurry.
A journey through Phuket City on the east coast is a diversion they do not need to make. So they pay hideous prices for taxis . . .
In Melbourne, Australia's tram capital, the network stretches out across the inner suburbs.
It is at its most effective and at its most efficient in carrying commuters to and from their jobs in the city centre, during peak hours.
Phuket, I hope the transport officials realise, does not need a transport network to carry commuters to one single city centre.
Workers are heading for resorts and other businesses at different places all over the island. There is no single, common destination.
Schools too are scattered across all of Phuket. Phuket is a holiday island, not an urban spread with a single city centre.
How many resorts are along the tram route? Very few.
For the billions of baht that are to be spent on this project to be justified, transport officials must do proper research on the island's demographics and on its social habits.
You know what? I don't believe either piece of essential research has been done.
In focusing as the transport officials did today on the one-way system that might be needed in Old Phuket Town if the 60-kilometre tram from the island's north to south gets the go-ahead, they have proved that they are putting the cart before the horse.
And a cart with a horse behind it would be just about as effective as a Phuket people-mover as a fixed-track tram.
I am not entirely gloomy about Phuket public transport.
The pink seung taw buses that crisscross Phuket City provide an excellent service for the very young, the very old and the very poor.
But surely the transport officials realise that if these people had motorcycles, that's what they would be using?
As a lover of trams, my advice to the transport officials would be to start with the demographics and the island's real public transport needs and work from there.
But don't forget that social habit category.
Replacing the motorcycle as the preferred form of transport on Phuket is the transport officials' ''Impossible Dream.''
To get Phuket people onto trams, you first have to get them off their motorcycles. Good luck with that.
Its a patheic sham designed for (a) skimming off the contracts, and (b) pandering to the taxi mafia. Phuket and Thailand should hand its head in shame. A bus service is what's needed. 3 million nor 42 billion baht.. Pathetic. I am leaving Phuket.
Posted by Elephants Gerald on June 18, 2015 20:00