Bus, van services ready for New Year travellers

State-run Transport Co will arrange buses and vans for 3,500 trips a day for New Year travellers, expecting 55,000 passengers a day next Wednesday and Thursday.

Company president Sanyalux Panwattanalikit announced this on Thursday after a meeting at Mo Chit bus terminal to discuss preparations for the New Year holiday.

Transport Co expected to see a 5% rise in the number of passengers using its inter-provincial bus and van services over the New Year holiday, given that the Covid-19 outbreak, and travel restrictions had eased and people wanted to travel, Mr Sanyaluk said.

From Dec 28 to Dec 29, about 55,000 passengers were expected to use bus and van services each day, an average of 3,500 trips.

Currently, 40,000-60,000 passengers were carried on bus and van services each day, he said.

For return trips on Jan 2 and Jan 3, an average of 53,000 passengers a day was expected on bus and van services, or 3,300 trips a day, he said.

Transport Co would seek permission from the Department of Land Transport to bring in non-regular buses to provide services during the New Year holiday. About 600 extra buses would be added to serve passengers.

• Related: SRT to raise capacity for New Year

New Year travellers could still book bus tickets in advance. Buses were not yet fully booked. On the northern, northeastern and eastern routes, 91 to 92% of bus seats were already booked while 93.94% of bus seats on the southern route were booked, said Mr Sanyalux.

Routes from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Bangkok to Nakhon Phanom and Bangkok to Hat Yai had the highest number of bookings for the New Year holiday.

He advised passengers to arrive at bus terminals 2 to 3 hours in advance of the scheduled departure time.