The visits began in Soi Ta-iad, Chalong, yesterday (Feb 2), where officers led by Col Jirasak Siamsak, a Deputy Commander of the Phuket Provincial Police, spoke with drivers at a taxi rank on the street.
Soi Ta-iad is well known for its Muay Thai and MMA training camps, and fitness centres, that are popular with general tourists as well as professional fighters.
Joining Col Jirasak yesterday were PLTO Chief Policy Specialist Kornpitak Assanasuwan and officers from the Chalong Police.
“From talking to the local taxi drivers on Soi Ta-iad, they understand and are ready to cooperate with government agencies,” Col Jirasak told The Phuket News today (Feb 3).
“This is a good way for all parties to solve problems together to prevent problems from recurring. After this, PLTO officers and Phuket Provincial Police will go to other areas to make local taxi drivers understand the hailing of other cars [through apps],” he said.
Col Jirasak made specific mention of the issue of Grab and Bolt drivers declining to pick up passengers from locations where there already is a taxi rank with drivers waiting for customers, as highlighted by the now widely reported incident in Kamala last Friday night (Jan 26).
“Local taxi queues will be organised at various points throughout Phuket along with providing a history of the car owner and the number of cars that are serviced,” he said.
“There have been claims that they [Grab/Bolt drivers] cannot come to pick up passengers because there is already a queue for local taxis at that location,” he added.
Col Jirasak also noted that there is currently only one phone app registered to allow passengers to book taxi services, the local-government-endorsed Hello Phuket Service app.
“Currently, there is only one application that has been properly licensed that can be used to call a Phuket taxi, Hello Phuket Service, and the fares are not much different from local taxis in the area. Other applications are still in the process of waiting to be certified properly,” he said.