How many cards must a Bangkokian carry with them just so they can make their way through the ever-so busy and bustling capital? No, I'm not talking about credit, debit, or loyalty reward cards. I'm talking about the cards that a commuter must carry just so that can move from Point A to B.
Several years have passed since the Mangmoom card -- literally, spider -- card was first announced, and yet city commuters' hopes of being able to carry a single pass that would allow them access the elevated train, MRT, airport rail link system, and also the city's expressways remain a pipe dream.
Do I need to remind you that Bangkok boasts of being a "smart city with seamless rail, bus, and boat connectivity". But the long wait for a single card simply tells us otherwise.
We still have to carry many cards to ride the BTS, MRT and ARL trains, while only cash is accepted for all boat and some bus services. Car drivers have to carry yet another pass for the expressway. As a cyclist, I also need to bring another card for the Pun Pun bike-share system.
Some three million people who are legally registered as low-income individuals also have to carry a welfare card that gives them 500 baht each month to be used on buses and the MRT network.
And now, some bus commuters have to make room for yet another card, after the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) recently introduced its own card to be used on Route 510 buses.
During the trial period that begins on April 9, BMTA's card can be used only on Bus No.510 that runs between Thammasat University's Rangsit campus and Victory Monument. The BMTA has played down the impact of the card's introduction, saying disruptions will be "minimal" as most passengers on the 510 bus are regulars.
For the card-cluttered Bangkokian, having to free up a space for another card is not that much of an inconvenience. However, very rarely can an individual complete a single journey without having to hop on to another bus or an entirely different transit system altogether. So, no -- from a commuter's perspective, it is definitely not convenient.
I can't grasp why the BMTA has to rush to implement yet another cashless system when its 1.6-billion-baht e-Ticket system that it has rolled out on about 2,600 buses was a total failure. The BMTA said that the e-Ticket programme was scrapped because the system was not "stable" enough.
The cost of rolling out the failed system will simply be labelled as a lost expense, but the agency stopped short of saying who would be held accountable for the flop.
Instead of using the money to improve the system, the cash-strapped agency chose to focus on a card that serves only to complicate the lives of the city's commuters, visitors from the provinces, and foreign tourists.
This is not just a matter of inconvenience. Without a common ticketing system, commuters who have to switch from one network to another will have to pay more, since they are required to pay each network's flag fall.
The Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning (OTP) -- the agency responsible for overseeing the implementation of the common ticketing system -- has not done anything to speed up the process, the framework for which was agreed on a decade ago.
The OTP came up with the common-ticketing system in 2006 and the operators of the BTS and MRT signed an MoU in 2007, but nothing has happened since. The OTP then launched the Mangmoom card in 2017. But still, what we got is a far cry from a single ticketing system, as the card can only be used on the MRT's Blue and Purple lines.
By now, globetrotters are more familiar with the common-ticketing systems that have been in place for years abroad. Hong Kong rolled out the Octopus card in 1997, then Taipei followed in 2000 with the Easy Card. Singapore's Ezlink card came out in 2001, and then London rolled out the Oyster card in 2003.
While admittedly, some major cities do not have smart top-up cards, but almost all modes of their public transportation are accessible through one common ticket -- which means most commuters only have to carry one card to make it through the day.
By naming the card Mangmoom, authorities may have intended to suggest that the card can cover the ever-growing network of the city's public transport system. But after endless delays, its logo only makes me think of a spider's web -- because the long-awaited card has been at a standstill for so long, that a spider could weave its web around it.
Sirinya Wattanasukchai is a columnist, Bangkok Post.
