One ticket for transport to be tried out in capital

In the near future, people living in or visiting greater Bangkok will not need to hold different tickets or cards when they are travelling by more than one mode of transport, as they will instead be able to use a single card – named a “common ticket” – from their starting point to their destination. 

This will be thanks to a development project undertaken by the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy Planning (OTP), which is part of the Transport Ministry.

Papet Praditphet, acting director of the OTP’s Common Ticketing System Administration Bureau, said it was important to have a system that could offer travellers just a single card, given the rapid rise in passenger demand in Bangkok and surrounding areas and the development of the mass-transit transit for the capital. 

OTP has, therefore, been conducting a common-ticketing project, which will allow passengers within a couple of years to use a single ticket when transferring between different modes of transport. 

The common ticket, which will come with a single standard and multiple-issuer policy, is an integrated ticket or common card that can be used on all public transport services in greater Bangkok – such as public buses, the mass rapid-transit system, ferries and toll roads – as well as for non-transit services such as retail stores and parking lots, he said.

He said that implementation of the project, which had been kicked off this year, would be completed by the end of 2016 on a budget of Bt400 million. 

The project will come with both front- and back-end system systems, operating under a national standard. The common ticket will also be embedded with technology for a contactless payment system. 

A pilot project will be conducted by the end of the year for the expressway, BTS Skytrain and Airport Rail Link routes. 

Moreover, the project will also develop a central clearing house for handling the transactions for both transit and non-transit operators that participate in the common ticketing system, said Papet.

Under the settlement service, commercial banks that receive advance cash will be responsible for settlement transactions for operators in order to ensure a smooth electronic settlement-transaction system, or e-money. 

The banks will also act as settlement-transaction centres and submit reports to the main Settlement Transaction Centre – the clearing house – for both transit and non-transit operators.

“I think the common ticket will connect all lifestyle activities for people in the digital era. It will increase travelling convenience by using a single card and motivate more people to use the mass-transit system, as well as save on development costs of a common ticketing system for each operator,” said the acting director.

He added that the common ticketing system would have the added benefit of gathering unified traffic information for carrying out a transportation-system development plan, increase the government’s ability to monitor fares and provide more flexibility for fare discounts for single or transfer trips. 

It will also reduce operating costs and aid fraud prevention for service operators, as well as helping to manage the fare-collection system effectively, correctly and completely. 

The agency expects the common ticket to be officially launched in the next couple of years, said Papet.