Uber taxi motorbike service

[bucknaway]

I just heard that uber is going to be offering motorbike taxi services. That's the best news I've heard all day and I'm looking forward to trying them out when I come to Thailand. Right now it will only be offered in Bangkok but I will be happy when it spreads to Phuket and Pattaya as well as Chiang Mai.

[lego]

Right, about time you can pay for your 15 baht motorcycle ride by credit card... S(n)ide remark, I wonder when we will read the first story about a flock of regular motorcycle taxi drivers beating the shit out of one of the Uber flavor, knowing how territorial they can be...

[sjaak327]

What's wrong with the current lot ? You approach them, state destination and off you go, don't even need a smartphone, win, win.

[bucknaway]

The advantage is being able to summon a motorbike taxi from locations where they are hard to find. Or in locations where the quoted prices are ridiculous. You guys won't have to use it.... hell, i remember when posters didn't like the idea of me using my laptop on the beach before it became "A Thing"

I'm happy for the uber option and plan to make use of it.

[cdnmatt]

I'm going to wait it out for the Uber tuk-tuk service. :)

I'm actually with lego though. I can't see the current motorcycle taxi drivers being too friendly to anyone who works for Uber.

[Moses]

Just for your information: colored vest with number for bike-taxi driver costs 80 000 baht (I mean real one with license).

[sjaak327]

The advantage is being able to summon a motorbike taxi from locations where they are hard to find. Or in locations where the quoted prices are ridiculous. You guys won't have to use it.... hell, i remember when posters didn't like the idea of me using my laptop on the beach before it became "A Thing"

I'm happy for the uber option and plan to make use of it.

Oh sure, not sure where exactly in Bangkok motosais are hard to find, and where ridiculous prices are being asked, never has been a problem for me, and I frequent pretty remote neighborhoods in Bangkok.

Never knew using laptops on a beach became a thing :) As someone who makes a living in ensuring all of those servers that make the 'cloud' a reality keep on running, I tend to stay well clear of all of that whilst on holiday, especially on a beach, laptops aren't really made to use in that wet and sandy environment anyway :)

As to licenses, I sure hope that IF they don't have the necessary licenses to operate that they are banned. They seem to think that just because they are 'hip' that they can get around license requirements, this is what got their normal service into hot water in Thailand in the first place. And that is only logical and just. If normal taxi drivers need a special license to operate, so should those uber boys.

[bucknaway]

This may help
http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/24/technology/uber-motorcycle-taxi-bangkok/

[dinagam]

Uber taxi motorbike is a romantic idea. I could imagine myself choosing a bigger bike riding pillion with a cool driver taking the coastal roads at sunset, from Pattaya to Rayong and back .

[Smiles]

How about Uber-Boys Bucky.

What nonsense ... Uber Motorcy good grief. The M/C dudes are on every street and soi and alley in every village, town, city in Thailand. Sometimes the lineup in Bangkok is uber-long but fast moving anyway.
As for the beach notebook, what do you mean 'a thing'. Far from it ... a smartphone is 'a thing', to all our detriments.
You're running in the wrong direction Buck.
[An admission; so am I. I hate fucking smartphones with all my innards]

[francois]

Uber taxi motorbike is a romantic idea. I could imagine myself choosing a bigger bike riding pillion with a cool driver taking the coastal roads at sunset, from Pattaya to Rayong and back .

You may be disappointed in Pattaya; it seems the size of a motorbike taxi is regulated by "law" to max of 125 cc or thereabouts. 5 cc over the limit and no license for the driver.

[arsenal]

Moses: 80'000 baht for a vest. That's extortionate. How can they afford it?

[Moses]

Moses: 80'000 baht for a vest. That's extortionate. How can they afford it?

it is how is controlled quantity of bike-taxi: vest (license) is lifetime, and quantity of vest is permanent, when somebody want to be bike-taxi - he have to buy vest from working driver... that means after retiring driver will take his money back by selling his vest...

one of our (with BF) Thai friends bought vest, he had collect money from half of his village and then paid it back in 1 year...

[arsenal]

Moses: If it's for life and the driver can sell it on then it's actually a quite brilliant idea. It keeps the numbers down and so their incomes up plus it's an investment they can cash in whenever they choose or presumably rent out, a sort of pension. Quite quite brilliant.

[Moses]

It keeps the numbers down and so their incomes up plus it's an investment they can cash in whenever they choose or presumably rent out, a sort of pension.

That why you can expect clashes btw licensed bike-drivers and uber-bikers: the second part don't pay for license and can make price dumping., and they will do it very soon then clashes will follow as it was already in Paris and London btw cab-taxi and uber-taxi.

3602

[bucknaway]

This forum isn't very optimistic. 😊

[Yraen]

Ahhh Smiles ... now I understand why you are so 'gutless' in expressing an opinion. LOLOL.

[Smiles]

Just for your information: colored vest with number for bike-taxi driver costs 80 000 baht (I mean real one with license).Incorrect: the cost (all in) to purchase the new orange vests and the yellow licence plate is 3,500 baht. Both those items are issued by the government motor vehicles dept. After that there is an annual fee of 2000 Baht paid to the government to keep the new licence valid. These two cost items are the same throughout the country.

The second step is to be accepted into the motorcycle taxi 'queue' ... and that is a whole different process, run by the motorcycle taxi mafia (I.e. the police). To get into a queue in the first place requires an upfront one-time payment (under the table) plus a monthly fee. These costs differ depending on the location of the queue ... for instance, here in Hua Hin the monthly donation is 300 Baht.

In Bangkok the monthly fee can vary depending on The Collector but I assume it higher than Hua Hin. The upfront one-time queue donation to the the mafia in Bangkok can run from around 50,000 Baht to as high as 80,000.

[francois]

A driver can also rent his vest on a monthly basis.

[christianpfc]

I had some hanky-panky with a mocy taxi driver at Hua Lampong (i.e. his station is at Hua Lampong, we went to a hotel for the hanky-panky) in 2013 and asked him about daily income: on a poor day 300 Baht, on an average day 500, on a good day 800.

From my occasional use of mocy taxis, I can say that prices are reasonable and coverage is good; from my perspective the system works well. All stations (in Thai วินมอไซ win mocy) have price tables in Thai.
http://christianpfc.blogspot.com/2014/08/mocy-and-taxi-price-tables.html

(I use mocy only rarely, usually no helmet is provided for passenger and my knees are outmost and head is upmost point. Short distances I usually walk, from 2 km on taxi costs about the same and is more comfortable and safer, however mocy is faster in traffic jam.)

[lego]

In Bangkok the police and the mocy mafia aren't always one and the same. At least in some areas I'm familiar with, the queues are controlled by another group I won't name, but the local police station collects their part by stopping and fining the mocy taxi drivers just like any other offenders. Once I even had the pleasure to be the passenger when that happened to my driver. The police officer and I saw it fit to ignore each other, the poor driver had to pay 500 baht for - lack of insurance.

[Smiles]

I'm sure you're right on that.
In Hua Hin the police are 'The Behind' in many instances: for example, they own one boy bar, and collect their monthly stash from the other two (yes, only 3 gay bars in HH at the moment). They don't collect in uniform, in fact the guy who gets the take from the surrounding queues in our part of town - there are many more than one - is a pretty handsome dude but dresses down and sits on the steps of the ajascent 7-11 once a month chatting up the riders over a bottle of whiskey. Quite social actually and most farangs wouldn't have a clue that he's a cop, or use the word 'mafia' in this context.

I'm sure there are non-police groups who do the collecting in other towns in Thailand ... certainly in Surin Province the kickback crew are not the ones in uniform. But no matter the process in other areas, you can make a very easy bet that the police get their cut no matter what.

[bucknaway]

Forget UBER! If you are in Thailand and have a smart phone, get the GRAB APP and use it to hire motorbike taxi's or Private Taxi's. It also has a pick-up and delivery service!

Why use GRAB? Well lets say I want to go from Silom to Babylon. If I hire a regular motorbike taxi the cost will range from 50 to 80 baht. When I have used GRAB, the taxi cost has been 27 baht both ways! I don't have a credit card linked to the app. (My bank blocked it and my fraud protection kicked in so I use the cash option).

Their other services are also very cheap. The other part is that it will show you a picture of the driver and you can track his location on the map as he makes his way to you.

This is just an FYI for those of you that may find it helpful. For those of you that don't need it should ignore this post.

One think to note is that the drivers don't wear vests. I have not used the private taxi's before so I don't think they are metered and you are expected to pay the quoted price. At times when my cost was 21 baht the driver wanted to make change for me but I just waved them off to keep the change.

[dinagam]

Looks like a good option.

Is the service also available in Pattaya?

[bucknaway]

Looks like a good option.

Is the service also available in Pattaya?

I don't know. I tried it out of frustration dealing with the high quotes from motorbike guys. Once you put in your destination, the app puts your request out to the associated drivers until one or more accepts the route. If you don't like the driver selected the app lets you reject that driver and will try to find you a replacement.

I think it is available all over Thailand. I don't stand near taxi stands when I request a ride. I just stand near a shop or a hotel or on a corner. I wish I had used it when I was in Pattaya because I would have gone more places rather than just using the 10 baht bus route.

[francois]

Is it really that important to save a few Baht, maybe $1 USD, to hire some scab to get to your destination? A good friend is a motorbike taxi driver and earns little as 250 Baht/day, not enough to live on, so why try to screw these drivers out of a few more Baht?

[cdnmatt]

Personally, for the extra few baht I'd prefer just to grab the guy that's already sitting there, instead of waiting 20 minutes for some other guy to weave his way through traffic and find me.

[bucknaway]

To each his own. Life is full of options :)

[francois]

Seems like Uber and GRAB might be good options for all the Cheap Ivans who visit Pattaya; they are always trying to knock off 10 or 20 Baht from quoted priced by mocy taxi drivers. The drivers tell them to walk.

[bucknaway]

I just used the grab app to book a taxi from my hotel to the airport and it was the best experience I have had with drivers taking me to the airport. He turned on the meter without asking, got us there quickly and didn't beg for a top but I did tit him handsomely and rated him 5 stars.

I've asked around and the app is used by many of my wealthier Thai friends but not by my not so wealthy friends, but after showing it to them and the trip cost, they love it! The app that is😊

[francois]

I just used the grab app to book a taxi from my hotel to the airport and it was the best experience I have had with drivers taking me to the airport. He turned on the meter without asking, got us there quickly and didn't beg for a top but I did tit him handsomely and rated him 5 stars.



Didn't beg for a top and you tit him? Bucky, now that is a good recommendation for GRAB.