BMTA to lease ‘green’ buses

Plan to procure 700 vehicles in works

The Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) aims to lease 700 buses and buy another 35 between October and December next year, or in the first quarter of the 2020 fiscal year, according to a Transport Ministry source.

The bus leasing project consists of 400 hybrid buses at a cost of 3.2 billion baht and 300 buses powered by natural gas for vehicles (NGV) at a cost of 1.7 billion baht.

The source noted another 35, subject to purchase, will be electric buses. The scheme, which includes the construction of electric vehicle charging stations, will cost 571 million baht.

The BMTA has also come up with a plan to buy 1,453 hybrid buses at a cost of 11.6 billion baht sometime later.

The source said this bus purchasing scheme could kick off in the last three months of 2020.

The BMTA is embarking on vehicles powered by alternative energy sources as the organisation takes into account environmental considerations, the source said, adding this new purchase and leasing scheme is not connected with the BMTA’s dispute-plagued plan to buy 489 gas-fuelled buses from the Bestlin Group.

The source said the buses powered by alternative energy would comply with the debt-ridden BMTA’s rehabilitation plan to lower fuel costs.

BMTA board chairman Nattachat Jarujinda said the bus leasing contract would last about seven years and the vehicles would feed commuters to electric train lines which are set to gradually come into service.

He stressed that the BMTA would refrain from buying new buses outright due to possible fluctuations in demand in the future.

Mr Nattachat said the BMTA’s rehabilitation is making significant headway.

This includes a plan to repair 323 buses at a cost of 161 million baht, or not more than 500,000 baht per bus, according to the board chairman.

Work is under way to conclude the median price and draw up terms of reference for the repair work bidding, he said, adding that the bidding could be completed before the end of the year.

About 30 buses could be repaired each month, he said.

Methods under the rehabilitation plan would be gradually forwarded to the cabinet for consideration, he said.

By the end of the year, a management plan for the organisation’s 100-billion-baht debt will be presented to the cabinet. Mr Nattachat said 84.8 billion baht stemmed from government policy decisions while the rest was associated with the BMTA’s own management.

He said the BMTA would ask the government to shoulder the policy-based debt and a deal must be made with the Finance Ministry over the issue. He noted such a deal would be concluded and proposed to the BMTA’s board meeting in September before being forwarded to the cabinet later.

The BMTA, he said, also has a plan to proceed with human resource restructuring to reduce the organisation’s costs, including early retirement packages for employees.