Technical experts have urged an overhaul of the bidder qualification criteria for government auctions to prevent registration system collapses for state projects with a massive amount of registrants.
The comments follow glitches in the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) registration system for the 1.76-billion-baht co-payment scheme, which subsidises hotel rooms for domestic tourists.
The glitches led to crashes from the first day of registration on Tuesday. The TAT apologised on Wednesday for the glitches.
A source with experience in developing large-scale registration systems who requested anonymity said it might be difficult to pinpoint the exact flaws in the co-payment system's registration.
The source likened the mess to hiring a home builder to construct a large building, the kind of project that requires specialised expertise.
Designing a registration system for a large project requires a robust queuing mechanism, added the source.
"These kinds of systems must be able to efficiently manage massive volumes of user traffic, particularly during peak registration periods," said the source.
Without a well-engineered queuing structure, users may experience timeouts, system crashes or delayed responses -- issues that severely erode public trust.
The source emphasised the need to reform the government procurement process.
Instead of awarding contracts to the bidder proposing the lowest price, the contracts should be awarded to those with the best value or the best price-performance, noted the source.
If state agencies prioritise the lowest bid, the bidders will compromise on technical specifications so the project cost does not exceed the budget, and this undermines the overall system quality, said the source.
Furthermore, the terms of reference should clearly stipulate that eligible bidders must have experience in building systems capable of handling at least 10,000 transactions per second.
A thorough load performance test must be conducted prior to the system's launch to ensure stability and scalability under peak demand, the source added.
Another source who is familiar with government projects and requested anonymity said to build a system that can handle a heavy workload, one approach is using a front-end component that places incoming requests into a queueing system. This prioritises speed and avoids too much processing upfront.
Then, the back-end can gradually pull requests from the queue and process them in order.
"In other words, we don't 'fire' requests directly at the back-end. Instead, the back-end 'sweeps' requests from the queue and processes them accordingly. This kind of architecture makes the system much less likely to crash under load," said the source.
The source questioned whether it would be better to use an existing system that has already been optimised and proven it can handle heavy traffic loads.
TAT governor Thapanee Kiatphaibool said earlier the agency changed from using the Pao Tang application managed by Krungthai Bank in the previous scheme to its own app -- Amazing Thailand -- to establish data ownership and tighten security checks through verification on the state-owned ThaID app.
She said the two apps could help enhance security, allowing the TAT to assure the public that registrants' personal data is protected according to national standards.
The TAT said its co-payment system was developed by Raventure Co, which was established in 2023. Creden Data reported the company has 2 million baht in registered capital.
The company said its executives had experience in developing government apps, including the Mor Prom vaccination information service during the pandemic.
Ms Thapanee said the registration process, which has been heavily criticised for its complexity, is needed to avoid large losses from fraud, as occurred in the past four phases of the "We Travel Together" scheme.