UberX and Bangkok Taxis
An interesting news for Thailand tech scene this week is UberX, the lowest tier of Uber call-for-taxi service, is coming to Bangkok. (Source, in Thai)
Uber came to Bangkok half year ago with UberBlack, its default service. The introducing of UberX seems to be a trivial expansion but its impact might be more than that.
For those who are non-Thai, Bangkok colorful taxis might not be the problem for them but most of Thais in Bangkok have seen ‘ugly’ side of Bangkok taxis for a long time.
The price of meter taxis in Bangkok starts at 35 Baht and increases by distance or still-time on the road. The government announced this rate many years ago and hardly increase it to match the inflation. I’m not expert on this but many economists say the rate is too low for taxi drivers.
That’s the reason why many drivers deny the ride if the passengers want to go to somewhere not in their direction or in the really jammed traffic area. Some drivers also prefer picking up foreigners (mainly the westerners or “Farang”) since they can turn off the meters and negotiate for extra ride rate (which Thai riders will not allow that but many westerner tourists are OK).
If you go to some attraction sites in Bangkok e.g. big malls in Ratchaprasong area, some taxis around that will not even glance on Thai passengers calling them on the street. This behavior causes many local Thais furious and think taxi drivers are tricky as whole.
Then there come Uber and other taxi-calling apps like EasyTaxi and GrabTaxi. You just call taxi from your phone and then BOOM! You got a ride, no need to endlessly negotiate with taxi drivers whether they accept your ride or not.
Uber might be different from EasyTaxi and GrabTaxi since Uber use ‘limousine’ car while the others just call a standard taxi (who accept the ride within app). The rate of UberBlack is more expensive but not-that-expensive. Many of my friends now prefer Uber since they can pay a bit more but got a far better experience. The taxi experience in Thailand is so painful so some high level executives I know just park their car somewhere and rely solely on Uber.
And now the cheaper UberX is coming to town. With the cheaper rate (starting at 25 Baht) and still-good experience on taxi-calling, I think UberX will be another smash hit and its impact will shape Bangkok taxi system in some ways.
In the near future, we might see headlines like “Bangkok Taxis Strike Because of Uber Competition” or something like this.
