Gen Yodyut is on a two-day visit to Phuket. On the first day of his visit, yesterday, he joined a meeting at Phuket Provincial Hall to be briefed on the progress of six main road projects under development for Phuket.
Gen Yodyut also serves as Chairman of the Board of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (MRTA), which has been tasked with overseeing many of the projects.
Gen Yodyut said that the trip to Phuket was “to receive information on problems and obstacles in the implementation of transportation and transport projects in Phuket Province in order to use the information to help expedite the development of various projects in Phuket so the government would be to solve transportation and transportation problems to produce concrete results”.
At the meeting yesterday, Phuket Vice Governor Sattha Thongkham explained, “Phuket’s tourism industry had made the [island’s] economy in 2023 rank number 1 in Southern Thailand and number 2 in the country after Bangkok.”
Phuket’s tourism industry in 2023 generated more than B330 billion, an increase of 98.21% from 2022, V/Gov Sattha said.
Phuket last year welcomed more than 10 million tourists in 2023, an increase 109.61% over 2022, he added.
“As the tourism industry grows, the increase in the number of tourists from more and more countries can generate income for Phuket, but Phuket is also facing major problems due to the increase in tourists, and we must urgently take corrective action, especially with public transportation infrastructure problems and traffic,” V/Gov Sattha said.
“There is only one main road, namely Route 402 [Thepkrasattri Rd], that supports the province’s traffic, and vehicles from other provinces use the road as well,” he said
V/Gov Sattha pointed out that although Phuket had civil registration population of 423,599, the large number of non-registered people on the island have Phuket a “hidden” population of over 1.25 million.
The number of cars and motorbikes registered in Phuket totalled 503,504 vehicles, he added.
Describing the problem simply, V/Gov Sattha said, “There is a lack of an efficient and comprehensive public transportation system to facilitate tourists and citizens.”
There are six projects currently slated for development in Phuket to help alleviate the island’s traffic problems, V/Gov Sattha explained:
- The Phuket Provincial Mass Transit System Project, Phase 1 (Phuket Airport - Chalong Circle)
- The Kathu - Patong Expressway Project (Patong Tunnel)
- Muang Mai Expressway Project - Koh Kaew - Kathu
- A project to expand Route 4027 to four lanes from km. 14 - 300 - km. 18+850
- A project to expand Route 402 to four lanes from km. 18+850 - km. 20+800;
- A project to construct an Interchange at the intersection of Route 4027 (the Tha Ruea Intersection at the Heroines Monument)
Gen Yodyut is to continue his inspection tour of Phuket’s traffic problems today. It was not made clear whether he would be visiting Bang Tao in Cherng Talay, which in recent months has become a hotspot for longstanding traffic congestion.