The Land Transport and a Bangkok shopping mall have teamed up to name, shame and fine taxi drivers caught refusing passengers.
The department has fined 31 of the 54 drivers caught rejecting fares at Siam Paragon and is trying to locate the remaining 23. In addition, the mall posted the licence plate numbers of all 54 drivers on a signboard there, Thai Rath Online quoted director-general Teerapong Rodprasert as saying.
The board, noting that all the listed licenced cabs had refused passengers, also lists the names of their taxi cooperatives and rental agents. Drivers often share cabs, so their names could not be listed.
Photos of the signboard posted online drew rave reviews, mostly from those who previously were rejected by city taxis.
Mr Teerapong said the move came after the department urged all department stores to gather and submit information on taxis refusing to pick up passengers so that action could be taken against them.
The DLT suspended the licences of two cabbies for seven days after finding that they had been fined previously for the same offence.
The crackdown at Siam Paragon followed a similar, late-night sting operation on three streets off lower Sukhumvit Road last week. In that case, 34 cabbies were arrested by local police and fined for refusing fares, according to Thai media.
An inspection in the Ratchaprasong shopping district last month found rejecting passengers and not using meters were the most common problems. Mr Teerapong urged the public to contact the 24-hour 1584 complaint hotline or the free DLT Check smartphone app to report poor service.