Insufficient rest is key factor in 4,000 traffic accidents involving inter-provincial buses each year,
Every other day, bus driver Hong Kaewkerd, 43, uses a small plastic camp bed to catch up on sleep after his eight-hour night drive from Loei to Bangkok.
He looks exhausted, propped up on his "day bed" which is sandwiched between two buses parked across the road from Mor Chit Bus Terminal.
"I'm trying to sleep," he says. It is almost 5pm and in a few hours he will have to start getting ready for the return drive back to Loei.
Mr Hong has driven the same route practically every night for the past eight years.
"I've never had a holiday," he says. "This is the closest thing I get to a holiday, the half-day break [before the drive back]."
Inter-provincial bus drivers are legally required to take breaks. Insufficient rest is a key factor in the 4,000-odd traffic accidents which involve inter-provincial buses each year - an average of 10 crashes a day - says the Road Safety Group.
Reckless driving and the need to compete for passengers are other major causes of accidents involving the buses.
About 12 million passengers travel on 8,500 inter-provincial buses a year.
The high incidence of fatal road accidents remains an ever-present concern for people who travel on the buses.
Over the past year, courts have ordered bus operators to compensate 83 passengers who were injured in bus crashes.
Mr Hong says he follows Department of Land Transport (DLT) regulations which require drivers to take a half-hour break for every four hours they are on the road, with a daily maximum of eight hours' driving.
But he cannot vouch that all his colleagues do the same.
"I usually worry about drivers on my trips during the festive seasons," says Nongyao Muangthong, 52, as she waits for her bus to Sakon Nakhon, a night-time journey which takes 11 hours.
As a government worker based in Saraburi, she makes this trip home from Bangkok almost every weekend.
There are usually two drivers for the long-haul journey, she says, but during busy periods such as Songkran, there is often only one.
That means the driver is forced to break the eight-hour rule. There is often no attendant on board which means the driver has multiple jobs to do, she says.
Mrs Nongyao said she is often panicked by how fast buses go.
"I understand that the driver needs to speed up to meet his bus schedule. But it can be scary and very fast," she says.
The cheaper air-conditioned buses she travels on always have more passengers than they are permitted to carry. A recent survey of safety and service quality on about 3,000 air-conditioned buses conducted by the Foundation for Consumers revealed that customers gave the thumbs down to half of the operators of northern bus routes, 70% on northeastern routes and 30% on southern routes.
Long-distance buses are popular with low- to middle-income travellers who find rail services less satisfactory.
But the large number of passengers who are killed and injured while travelling on the buses has prompted consumer groups and researchers to call for an overhaul of the licensing system handled by Transport Co, a state enterprise which is sanctioned by the DLT to operate bus services.
Sumet Ongkittikul, a researcher at the Thailand Development Research Institute, said in a recent study that the way that Transport Co grants bus licences is part of the problem.
Currently, the firm issues a bus firm with a licence for each route it operates - there are 300 routes nationwide. The permit lasts seven years.
Licensed operators are allowed to sub-contract the routes to other operators under a joint-service agreement.
About 80% of inter-provincial bus services are sub-contracted, joint operators, Mr Sumet says.
This results in a situation where services overlap and the licensee and sub-contractors are forced to compete for passengers.
"This kind of competition does not benefit passengers because it has not improved services. Instead, it enables operators to increase the numbers of trips to get as many passengers as they can," he says.
The whole inter-provincial bus system must be developed as a network to provide travellers with better and safer services, he says.
In addition, action should be taken against sub-contracted operators who fail to meet safety and service quality standards, he says.
Consumer groups want the licence period to be shortened to three or five years to make operators more accountable. They also want safety standards, such as the use of seatbelts, to be strictly enforced.
Passengers can file complaints by calling Transport Co on 1490 or the Department of Land Transport on 1584
From : Bangkok Post
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