Gripes about bad taxi drivers have made up almost three-quarters of complaints to the Land Transport Department’s 1584 hotline over the past eight months.
Read the following story from the Bangkok Post to learn more about these common complaints.
According to a statistical report released at the end of June this year, of the 26,000 calls made to the Department of Land Transport’s hotline since October last year, 18,800 were about poor taxi services, while 1,600 related to problems with non-air-conditioned buses and 1,400 were about public passenger vans.
SMALLER PROBLEMS
A further 1,200 complaints related to privately owned air-conditioned buses operated under contract with the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority, while 1,200 callers aired grievances with services run directly by the BMTA.
Another 200 calls were from people unhappy with motorcycle taxi services. The rest related to poor motor-tricycle and songtaew truck operators.
RUDE AND RECKLESS
The department has processed 94.1 percent of the complaints. For the rest, officials are inviting drivers in for questioning.
Most of the taxi complaints were about drivers refusing to take passengers, followed by rudeness and reckless driving.
The most common complaint about passenger van services related to reckless driving, followed by drivers refusing to stop to allow passengers to get out when requested. There were also many complaints about rude drivers of passenger vans.
CHANNELS FOR COMPLAINTS
Land Transport Department director-general Achasathai Ratanadilok Na Phuket said people who were inconvenienced by public transport service operators would soon be given more channels to file complaints. In addition to the telephone hotline, the department plans to accept complaints via text message and smart phone applications, he said.
Achasathai added that to increase efficiency in investigating passenger complaints, the department is also considering opening a new database centre to keep records of all public transport drivers.