The head of the company which produced the malfunctioning welfare card-reading systems which plunged the capital's bus and mainline train networks into chaos on Wednesday has promised the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) will be compensated.
Cho Thavee Plc CEO Suradech Taweesaengsakulthai has said the company will pay out to the BMTA for all losses incurred as a result of the glitch.
The systems have been blighted by persistent equipment malfunctions and weak network signals, resulting in failures to deduct fares from the cards.
"As the company who agreed to the contract, we will take full responsibility for all financial losses the BMTA has suffered from our malfunctioning systems," Mr Suradej said.
"After numerous meetings, we have concluded that the systems will be completely functional by next month."
Mr Suradech said the problems arose because the company was rushed into rolling out the card-reading systems.
"When a project is rushed, there are bound to be mistakes," Mr Suradech said. "We are trying our best to fix them as quickly as we can."
Cho Thavee won an auction in June to install the ticket-reading systems in 2,600 BMTA buses by June 2018, in a project valued at around 1.6 billion baht.
The agreement initially required the company to install the systems on 100 buses by last month, completing installments on 700 more buses by December.
A total of 600 buses currently support the welfare card systems, according to the BMTA.
Cho Thavee Plc had 100 buses equipped with card-reading systems ready by Wednesday, one month past the specified deadline.
Another 250 buses currently use smartphones, operated by bus conductors, to scan the passengers' cards.
The remaining buses use manual ticketing systems, where conductors give welfare card-holders blue tickets instead of charging them the regular ticket fares.
"In terms of missing deadlines, we must clarify that we have only missed the one in October," Mr Suradech said.
"The extra 700 buses have only been deployed to assist the BMTA to coincide with the introduction of welfare cards at the start of this month."'
He said Cho Thavee will have all 2,600 buses equipped with fully functioning welfare card-reading systems before May.
He said the company can charge rental fees to gain profit only after all buses are delivered, as per the agreement.
Meanwhile, the BMTA State Enterprise Worker's union will submit a formal complaint Friday, asking the authority's managing board to terminate agreements with Cho Thavee if it fails to fix the malfunctions by next month.
Union president Veerapong Vongvan slammed the company after he reportedly received several calls from bus conductors about weak signal strength in the smartphones given to them to scan the passengers' cards.
He said the equipment malfunctions were "humiliating" and damaged the BMTA's reputation as a public transport operator.
"Yes, they have agreed to compensate the BMTA, but the authority's reputation has already been affected," Mr Veerapong said. "How do we expect to maintain a good name if authorities cannot service passengers?
"Giving passengers blue tickets instead is child's play. These makeshift methods are just ways of dealing with malfunctions as they occur.
"The company should relinquish its privileges if it fails to deliver malfunction-free services by the end of the year."
The manually dispensed blue tickets can only serve as a head-counting system for the BMTA, as no electronic data can be recorded from them, according to deputy director for the authority's bus operations Prayoon Choygeo.
