Bangkok is famous for its congested traffic and you find it even more true when you are stuck in it. A variety of means of transportation are available: the underground (MTR), the SkyTrain (BTS), the recent airport link, the taxis, the Tuk Tuk, the river boats and the buses. My last visit to Bangkok was over 20 years ago and the vision of all these elevated arteries threw me instantly into the vision of a futuristic world.

In terms of ticketing it becomes a bit more complicated as there is no integration between the various means of transport: which means that each time you want to use a service you have to have the adequate ticket (paper or magnetic), contactless card or contactless token. All technologies are used side by side without talking to each other. My first contact with public transport was with the SkyTrain which happened to have a station a few minutes of my hotel. I bought a store value smartcard and of I went through the tripode gates which are also accepting magnetic tickets in credit card size format for casual users (very much like in the Hong Kong system). To the contrary of an underground, you keep going upstair from street level to finaly reach the platforms.

The next day I went to the center to do some shopping and continue to experience the SkyTrain. When I wanted to return, I couldn't because of some malfunction which had made the service to be closed momentarily. I decided to take the underground to bring me closer to my hotel. When I tried my BTS smartcard on the MTR barrier gate, it told me that it was invalid. So I went to a automatic vending machine in the station to purchase a single trip: you are given a token which you present to gate to enter. When at the other end of your trip you must introduce your token into the gate to exit providing you have not lost your token.

The buses do not seem to be equipped with any sort of ticketing nor are the boats or the Tuk Tuk.

My two nights stay was far too short to investigate comprehesively Bangkok's public transport but I shall return to further polish my understanding of it.

SECOND VISIT:(February 2011)

As planned, I have returned and tried to better understand. It is clear that each public transport sector does its own business without apparently considering the others. The airport link is the very last service put into action and has its own ticketing which not compatible with the others.
Buses are not concerned by any compatibilty with Metro, Skytrain and Airport link.
To me a public authority coordinating the ticketing for everyone would be a serious improvement with the benefit of precious information about traffic thus improving planning of new means.
A city like Bangkok is a fast growing city and precise information about people movement is important to the city planning: this is typically what an integrated ticketing system can bring in.