PUBLIC TRANSPORT
AMORNRAT MAHITTHIROOK
Taxi drivers have threatened legal action if the Transport Ministry refuses to bring down the high cost of resetting their meters to the new fares to a reasonable level. Representing the taxi drivers, Withoon Naewpanit, head of the Taxi Siam Cooperatives, complained yesterday that the nine private companies supplying fare meters have set too high a charge for retuning them _ 400-600 baht per taxi. The firms were claiming intellectual property protection to discourage Mahanakorn University of Technology from offering its cheap meter tuning service of 200 baht per taxi.
He urged the Transport Ministry to legalise the university's cheaper service, or force the private companies to cut their charges to a reasonable level.
If the ministry failed to help, cabbies will ask the Lawyers Council to take up the case on their behalf as they cannot apply the new fares without having their meters expensively reset.
They were officially allowed to raise fares last Thursday.
''If the Mahanakorn University of Technology refuses to resume the service because of the intellectual property restriction, taxi drivers will seek an Administrative Court order to have the campus service restarted,'' Mr Withoon said.
Chairat Sa-nguansue, acting chief of the Land Transport Department, said at the moment things were in favour of private operators, as they were the ones importing the software that was needed to run the meters and was considered intellectual property.
After negotiating with officials, the operators agreed to cut their service fees to a certain extent, but have refused to hand over their software to the campus for a cheaper service, he said.
Deputy Transport Minister Songsak Thongsri suggested the Land Transport Department ask educational institutes to develop their own software and new taxi meters to make the service cheaper in future.
New software and meters should not only calculate fares but also print out receipts and require the input of drivers' ID cards for the sake of passengers' safety, he recommended.
Mr Songsak pointed out that private companies were intentionally delaying their meter tuning service in order to keep their charges high.
If the department had its own software, the meter adjustment charge would be only 100 baht per taxi at most, he said.
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