The long-awaited opening of the airport rail-link on 23 August substantially enhances the convenience of visiting Bangkok but a number of critical missing links will impede its connectivity with the city’s mass-transit systems.

The rail-link will be a blessing for independent travellers, especially backpackers, seeking to avoid the taxis and touts at Bangkok airport. In addition to helping decentralise and decongest Bangkok towards the suburbs, it will also help the capital join the league of regional cities such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong which have city-airport mass transit links.

Hotels in the vicinity of the rail-link stations and terminals at Phaya Thai, Ratchaprarop and Makkasan areas will gain a significant competitive advantage, especially in the Rajdamri area as well as those along Phetchaburi, Asoke and Rajdaphisek roads.

Providing easy access right under the Suvarnabhumi airport terminal, the rail-link is smooth and efficient. The rail-cars are spacious with plenty of place for luggage. Visitors will also enjoy panoramic views of Bangkok, including greenery, housing estates, temples, mosques, malls and the office towers of the inner city.

However, at least three problems will impede what would otherwise have been a seamless flow of passengers between the rail-link, the BTS Sky Train and the MRT Metro as they commute from the airport to various tourism-related destinations, and vice versa.

The BTS Sky Train / Rail-link interchange at Phaya Thai: There is no escalator to go down from the BTS Phaya Thai station to the level of the connecting walkway to the rail-link station. The existing escalator is only for going up. To go down, the steps have to be used, which may be a problem for those carrying heavy luggage. There are no luggage trolleys at the station either. Moreover, a small part of the walkway from the Sky Train station to the rail-link station is still under construction, projected for completion by the Aug 23 official launch date of the rail-link.

The MRT / Rail-link connection at Makkasan: This should have been possible from the Makkasan terminal to the Phetchaburi MRT station, but does not exist. An MRT executive said a “project” to establish a walkway is awaiting approval. As and when that is forthcoming, work can be finished in three months. Hence, those getting off at the Makkasan rail-link terminal cannot access the Phetchaburi MRT station.

Lack of a single commuter ticket: The biggest obstacle will be the lack of a common ticket between the airport rail-link, the Sky Train and the MRT. Arriving visitors heading for say, the Hua Lumphong rail terminal, will have to first buy the rail-link ticket, then a Sky Train ticket and then again a Metro ticket separately at each interchange.

Mr Surapong Laoha-Unya, Director and Chief Operating Officer of the BTS Sky Train, acknowledged that this has long been an issue, for both technical and administrative reasons. Not only are the ticketing technologies entirely different, but one company is under private control while the other is a quasi-public sector organisation, which means two entirely different mindsets, procedures and systems.

Mr Surapong noted that a common ticket between the Sky Train and the MRT has been in the works for about three to four years. Now that the airport rail-link is due to open, it has taken a new sense of urgency and is expected to be in place some time next year.

After the rail-link is officially opened, tickets will cost only 15 baht per trip per person until the end of 2010. The system is expected to be a money-losing operation for years, although some of the cost may be offset by advertising in the rail-cars and the stations, especially at the airport and Makkasan terminals.

Once these issues are sorted out, however, the benefits for Bangkok’s tourism industry will be phenomenal. Mr Surapong said the BTS, which opened in 1999, is well aware of the tourism advantage and projects clear increases in passengers after the rail-link opens.

He noted that visitors have benefited from thousands of discounted BTS passes sold to the tourism sector between 2002 to July 2010, including 342,152 sold to hotels along the Sky Train routes, 568,968 to tour operators and 93,025 passes to the Tourism Authority of Thailand and the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau. In 2009 alone, sales to tour operator totalled 81,244 passes, hotels 45,415 passes and TAT and TCEB 18,000 passes.

Mr Surapong said that the rail-link would also help boost sales of the Sky Train’s one-day pass which costs only 120 Baht and can be used for unlimited number of trips to tourist spots along the Sky Train routes.

“Visitors with little time to spare don’t like sitting in traffic,” he said. “The rail-link will help all the mass-transit systems boost sales, especially to the growing numbers of visitors from new markets such as India.”

Originally publish by http://www.ttrweekly.com