Bangkok Buses Mass Transit Authority (BMTA)

BMTA, Bangkok City Buses

Bangkok's city buses are a very cheap way to get around the capital or to reach its adjacent provinces. It's also a nice way for tourists to enjoy the real Bangkok. Buses offer to you a full immersion in this chaotic capital, with colourful hidden corners, folkloric characters, scents or smells less pleasant, aggressive and unruly drivers, bad traffic condition and even pollution. Nevertheless this is the real Bangkok Hardcore. Bangkok Mass Transit Authority, also known as BMTA, is the main operator of public city buses within Bangkok Metropolitan Region. BMTA offers over 400 bus and van routes throughout the capital and its five suburban provinces, i.e. Nakhon Pathom, Pathum Thani, Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan, and Samut Sakhon. It serves approximately 1.1 million passengers on an average weekday, mostly commuters, with its own fleet of over 3.500 buses, comprising about 1,600 ordinary buses and 1,900 air-conditioned buses. The different types of buses are recognizable by their colour. The air-conditioned bus fleet consists of big Blue and Yellow Buses. The Blue Buses run on urban and suburban routes, using the city and intercity roads and making many stops. The Yellow Buses serve similar routes but use the Express Ways and Toll Ways on most of their path, making few stops, therefore are a little more expensive but faster. The ordinary bus fleet consists of big Red Buses and smaller Green Buses. They are cheaper, always crowded and make incessant stops. BMTA, in addition to its own buses, also uses over 10,000 private-own contract buses, minibuses or van. The bus service runs daily from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m., except the night buses that run 24/24. The bus fares are really cheap and vary depending on distance travelled and type of buses, between 8 and 20 THB for urban routes, and between 30 and 45 THB for suburban routes and for bus lines that connect the two Bangkok's airports to the city centre. The customers pay once on board with cash or prepaid coupons directly to conductor of bus. The frequent customers can purchase the most convenient coupons at BMTA headquarter and branch offices. In the next future, the government will implement a common ticketing system across all mass transit systems, i.e. BMTA, BTS, MRT and Airport Rail Link, allowing passengers to pay with a single smart card. Despite its affordability, in the last two decades the passenger numbers have been almost consistently on decline. The BMTA reported an average of 1.1 million passengers per day in 2010, a quarter of the 4 million reported in 1992. Although a large number of commuters still use the buses daily, most of them prefer the others new mass transit systems. This also applies to tourists visiting Bangkok for two main reasons. The first is that BTS, MRT and Airport Rail Link are faster, cleaner, cooler and equally cheap. The second is that buses are not too practical for tourists, not so straightforward to understand routes and stops, excluded the lines, which depart from the Bangkok's airports to centre city. For more determined and adventurous tourists is well to remember that to get on board of a bus in transit you have to make a sign to the conductor, and even signal to him the willingness to go down approaching to the doors. The planned buses stops are marked with signs that reporting the location, timetable of buses in transit and their destinations. In the city centre, they are located close to major tourist attractions, shopping areas, government offices and even in front of the most popular Hotels.Read More