New e-boats to start plying Bangkok canals from Friday

[webfact]

New e-boats to start plying Bangkok canals from Friday

By THE NATION

 

 

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has tested seven electric boats on Monday before they go into service from Friday.

 

 

These e-boats will run along Bangkok’s Phadung Krung Kasem Canal in line with the project of improving the capital’s water transportation system.

 

These boats, run completely by power generated from solar cells installed on the roof, will be monitored by the authorities via the pre-installed GPS system.

 

 

The 9.9-metre long and 2.9-metre wide boats can run at a maximum speed of 17 kilometres per hour, compared to the 15kmph speed of ordinary canal boats.

 

The new boats can seat 30 passengers and has space for one wheelchair.

 

Canal boats run along the Phadung Krung Kasem Canal from 6am to 7pm on weekdays and 8am to 7pm on weekends.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30398504

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-11-24

 

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[KhunKenAP]

Hope they have charging stations for rainy days. lol

[grumbleweed]

No life jackets required, passengers will dissolve before they drown

[Crossy]

This is an e-boat

 

 

Those panels look rather minimal for the stated performance. Of course there's no real technical data available ????

 

[hasitha77]

1 hour ago, grumbleweed said:

No life jackets required, passengers will dissolve before they drown

Electric boats are not an entirely new innovation, it has been used for many years worldwide. Hope there wont be any issue. 

[Tyler Visan]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

can run at a maximum speed of 17 kilometres per hour, compared to the 15kmph speed of ordinary canal boats

Apples & Oranges spring to mind!

[richard_smith237]

OK great..... But come on Thailand...  Surely e-busses should have been a priority. 

[tyga]

well, the sooner they replace the long tailed boats in Krabi and the like with E boats, the better.  LOL, they must oblivious to the WWII connotations ????

 

[khunjeff]

20 hours ago, webfact said:

New e-boats to start plying Bangkok canals from Friday

 

They won't be operating in "Bangkok canals", they'll be in a single canal where the boat service is operated as a pet project by the city rather than as a real commuter service. Meanwhile, authorities have been promising for years to introduce electric boats to the heavily used Klong Saen Saeb service, with no result so far.

[Gandtee]

For a moment I thought it said U -Boats.????

[josephbloggs]

"First Electric Commuter Boats Launched".

 

Normal people: That's a great first step, glad to see it.

TVF Posters:  They are not on another canal that has nothing to do with the story,  useless when it is raining, should have been busses, something about drowning, blah blah blah.

 

[impulse]

On 11/24/2020 at 11:11 PM, khunjeff said:

They won't be operating in "Bangkok canals", they'll be in a single canal where the boat service is operated as a pet project by the city rather than as a real commuter service. Meanwhile, authorities have been promising for years to introduce electric boats to the heavily used Klong Saen Saeb service, with no result so far.

 

Ya gotta start somewhere.  This looks like an excellent pilot project to prove the concept under BKK conditions. 

 

I'd have been a regular rider to go from Hua Lampong to the Bobae Wholesale Garments market.  That traffic alone could support the operation.  And there are tons of other places to go on that canal near Chinatown- covering that last few miles starting or ending at the MRT.  It could be a huge benefit for businesses in the area that were poorly served by the MRT/BTS.

 

If it works out, I suspect they'll roll it out as they get a getter idea of customer perception and design elements they may have to tweak.  It just makes sense to roll it out a little at a time, taking the learning lumps on a smaller scale.  Not to mention, in a location that isn't served by existing boats.  Before I left Thailand in 2019, I never saw commuter boats in that canal.  Just service boats to clean the trash.

Edited November 27, 2020 by impulse