New public cars to serve passengers in three Thai tourist destination provinces

BANGKOK, January 10 (TNA) - The Department of Land Transport, under the Thai Ministry of Transport, has joined forces with Bangkok Airways, to launch a new service of public passenger cars running between Thai airports in three provinces and local urban areas and bus or train terminals. Sanit Promwong, Director-General of the Department of Land Transport, and Puttipong Prasarttong-Osoth, President of Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited, signed an agreement on the cooperation in Bangkok on January 9. Under the agreement, both sides will jointly provide public passenger cars serving international travellers between an airport in each of the three Thai tourist destination provinces of Surat Thani in the South, Sukhothai in the Lower North and Trat in the East, and local urban areas, as well as local bus or train terminals to facilitate the international travellers in the provinces, promote local aviation and tourism and boost local economy. Sanit then told journalists that the cooperation is in line with a policy of his ministry and the Thai government on the integrated development of transport connectivity in the three Thai tourist destination provinces, beneficial to people in local communities where the new public passenger cars pass through. The senior official noted that the new local transport service, aimed also to support the balanced, comprehensive and quick local land transport systems, is under the close supervision of the Thai government in terms of its safety standard, quality and strict observation of transport regulations, along with local taxi and airport Limousine services in order to provide more transport options to international travellers and local people to meet their different lifestyles. The senior official revealed that the new local integrated transport service has already been officially approved in Sukhothai by its provincial land transport regulation committee, which comprises of two routes, one links between the Sukhothai Airport, the main provincial bus terminal and the Si Satchanalai Historical Park and the other links the Sukhothai Airport, the main provincial bus terminal and the Sawankhalok Train Station. According to the senior official, discussions and studies on the most appropriate routes of the new local service will soon be launched in Trat and Surat Thani, the latter of which will link between its Samui Airport and local communities and the main bus terminal. Besides, more parking facilities for public passenger cars will also be developed inside 29 Thai regional airports within this year. Meanwhile, the number of international passengers using the three Thai airports through Bangkok Airways flights had steadily increased during the first nine months of 2017, with the Samui Airport catering for over two million of them, followed by over 64,000 at the Trat Airport and over 60,000 at the Sukhothai Airport. (TNA)