{"id":3239,"date":"2023-10-06T03:38:41","date_gmt":"2023-10-06T03:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/getting-more-bang-for-your-buck-the-bangkok-rail-explosion\/"},"modified":"2023-10-06T03:38:41","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T03:38:41","slug":"getting-more-bang-for-your-buck-the-bangkok-rail-explosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/getting-more-bang-for-your-buck-the-bangkok-rail-explosion\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting more bang for your buck \u2013 The Bangkok rail explosion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having recently discussed how the laissez-faire approach to transit and urban planning in Jakarta<\/a> is holding the city back, in this City Snapshot Dr Chris Hale focuses on one of Jakarta\u2019s competitor Southeast Asian cities \u2013 Bangkok. Whilst it has recently opened the most new rail stations in a 5-year period in human history, a lack of public level engagement leaves him asking \u201cwhat does it mean\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n

There are plenty of before-and-after scenarios, but few as profound as the massive rail expansion exercise Bangkok is currently conducting:<\/p>\n

\ncurrent Bangkok rapid transit lines. by Zeddlex<\/a><\/div>\n

A swathe of line and station openings has occurred over the past 3-4 years. The light green Skytrain line has quadrupled in size \u2013 now reaching into northern and southern suburbs. The Blue Line MRT central loop has significantly expanded. Other new lines have also opened, and more are under construction.<\/p>\n

In combination with increased work-from-home, these changes have transformed the on-the-ground experience in Bangkok. \u2018Sedate\u2019 is not quite the right word, but there\u2019s a glimpse of a city yet-to-be, in which ground level conditions and moving around are advantages, no longer the hindrances they currently are.<\/p>\n

\none of bangkok\u2019s numerous elevated lines<\/div>\n

I counted at least 70+ new rail stations opened since my last visit in 2018. While cities like New York in the 1900s and Tokyo in the 1970s and 1980s saw massive expansion \u2013 it\u2019s possible Bangkok\u2019s current spurt is the most rapid in human history. With more to come.<\/p>\n

With great\u00a0power comes great\u00a0responsibility<\/h2>\n

As Bangkok\u2019s rail system emerges as a Southeast Asian leader on scale and ridership \u2013 invariably, professional and passenger focus will turn to more nuanced aspects of service and experience. While most of us rightly laud Tokyo as a world passenger rail leader, the Japanese capital has only quite recently addressed ticketing and fare integration problems that dogged passengers for several decades. Given Tokyo\u2019s somewhat fragmented \u2018private industry led\u2019 rail boom of the 1980s and 1990s, it\u2019s unsurprising that poor physical integration exists between lines created and run by different operators. Tokyo\u2019s rail convenience is largely an artefact of sheer scale, rather than insightful original network design. While the ticketing integration issue has been largely solved now in Tokyo, the question of convenient physical connections between different lines and even between notionally adjacent stations will essentially remain forever. <\/p>\n

Bangkok needs to address ticketing integration<\/strong> as quickly as possible. But it may be best served by looking to European, particularly German, metropolitan transit agencies as a model. The German Vekehrsverbund model not only handles ticketing, fare-setting, and operator contracts across multiple transit modes. The German regional transit agencies also take the lead hand in planning new corridors, and shaping network outcomes over time. Asia\u2019s rail model is world-unique in being highly commercial due to overwhelming ridership-generation opportunity. But Bangkok is at a stage now where a bigger and longer-term picture is required. Private companies should build, finance and operate new rail in Bangkok. But many might argue that government needs to take a stronger and more enlightened hand in setting an overall network development agenda for Bangkok, and erecting passenger travel convenience as the main system development priority.<\/p>\n

So \u2013 what does it mean?<\/h2>\n

The current wave of rapid construction was born from the government\u2019s M-MAP (Mass Rapid Transit Master Plan), drafted by the Ministry of Transport in 2010, and updated in 2017. This has seen the opening of eight rapid transit lines, with an additional four under construction and two planned.<\/p>\n

However, there are scant details for outsiders on questions of funding or even program philosophy<\/a>. It\u2019s possible that info is better for Thai speakers, but potentially not by much. So, this looks a lot like a government that\u2019s just decided \u2018we\u2019re going to fix the transport situation, and do that with rail\u2019.<\/p>\n

\nmrt majestic station interior<\/div>\n

Ordinarily, I\u2019d be suggesting a large-scale rail roll-out absolutely needs value capture and other programmatic funding innovations. As much because value capture ensures that no particular group unduly benefits. But also due to the profound impact that large infrastructure initiatives have on budgetary capacity. \u2018Offsetting\u2019 costs with alternative funds is just a good idea.<\/p>\n

But in the Bangkok case, unless new info emerges to the contrary, it would seem that value capture hasn\u2019t played a major role, in part due to poor co-ordination between urban development and transit planning<\/a>. Nor do we know of large-scale loan programs from the likes of the Asian Development Bank or World Bank. And the Japanese \u2013 who\u2019ve been active in Asian rail projects \u2013 don\u2019t seem to have played a major role beyond providing technical assistance.<\/p>\n

We might be able to guess where some of the borrowing is coming from (as far as there\u2019s borrowing), but we may well be wrong in our guesses.<\/p>\n

Which suggests an important conclusion to draw from the Bangkok rail story\u2026<\/p>\n

In Conclusion<\/h2>\n

That \u2018total urban solution\u2019 rail programs are actually within the capacities of willing governments to conduct.<\/p>\n

And before you rush to tell me the Thai government has been in the driver\u2019s seat, whereas in other parts of the world, other levels of government control rail. I\u2019d make the point that the GDP of Thailand is only slightly greater than the GDP of the State of Victoria. And we all know how well organised transit planning is going in Melbourne<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n

Dr Chris Hale is the founder and CEO of Hale Infra Strategy, which does infrastructure planning for East Coast Australian cities. This is one of a series of his City Snapshots of public transport networks on LR, slightly updated from his posts on LinkedIn.<\/em><\/p>\n

Map of current Bangkok rapid transit lines by Zeddlex<\/a>, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The post Getting more bang for your buck \u2013 The Bangkok rail explosion<\/a> appeared first on London Reconnections<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having recently discussed how the laissez-faire approach to transit and urban planning in Jakarta is holding the city back, in this City Snapshot Dr Chris Hale focuses on one of Jakarta\u2019s competitor Southeast Asian cities \u2013 Bangkok. Whilst it has recently opened the most new rail stations in a 5-year period in human history, a lack of public level engagement…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camcab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}