Last weekend I was passing though Victory Monument as I often do for various reasons and I realized that I had never really taken a proper set of bus transport images at this terminal before. So I decided to spend a couple of hours taking bus photos at Victory Monument and give it a much deserved place on my website.
A Little Background on the Victory Monument bus terminal.
Victory Monument was never designed as a bus terminal when first built but was actually a large traffic circle with a major war memorial in the centre. Today it is only one of a handful of remaining traffic circles in Bangkok. Most of them are traffic light controlled and do not operate like a western style roundabout.
Due to its large open area and close proximity to the inner city it was the perfect place for large numbers of urban bus routes to start at or pass though. Since WW2 Victory Monument has been at the heart of the Bangkok mass transport bus system. There are over 100 different bus routes operating though Victory monument, most on a high frequency basis. In more recent times the BTS provides a north south link though the Victory monument bus terminal making it even more important. At times around 40 – 50 buses a minute pass though this bus terminal.
However it is a rather poorly laid out bus terminal with very little information for passengers as to where the buses depart from within the terminal. Also the buses tend to stop in random locations resulting in traffic delays and making it harder to know where to wait for the bus. There can be rows of buses 4 deep in parts of the terminal forcing passengers to walk around the other buses to find their bus.
Another big problem with Victory Monument bus terminal is that it’s not a bus only area. This means that the terminal also has to deal with large volumes of through mixed traffic on 2 major roads. This often results in long delays entering and exiting the terminals and at peak times total gridlock within the terminal. This is something that will have to be fixed up in future years if the terminal is to cope with ever increasing numbers of passengers. The vast majority of bus passengers transfer to other buses at Victory Monument.
The bus terminal at Victory Monument it broken up into 4 sections these sections are based on the general direction of travel upon leaving the terminal and not the final destination of the buses.
Buses that head north along Phahon Yothin Road depart from the North – West side of the terminal.
Buses that head south along Phaya Thai Road depart from the South – East side of the terminal.
Buses that head west along Ratchawithi Road depart from the South – West side of the terminal.
Buses that head east along Ratchawithi Road depart from the North – East side of the terminal.
Also bus Route 551 to Suvarnabhumi Airport departs from this section of the terminal.
Located under the expressway to the north of Victory Monument is a very small but crowded expressway van terminal with high frequency van services to a wide range of outer suburban locations such as Pak Kret, Rama 2, Rangsit. Unlike the much larger bus terminal the services are well marked albeit in Thai language and each route has a queuing area. Most of these privately operated van service operate on a continuous shuttle basis from around 6am to 11pm 7 days a week. Also lower frequency intercity Van services depart from this terminal but the passengers wait inside the Van instead of queuing up outside.
1. This is an image of the expressway van from Rama 2 just after it had arrived at Victory monument. BMTA Van number 71/1 - 21. These vans hold 15 passengers maximum.
A Little Background on the Victory Monument bus terminal.
Victory Monument was never designed as a bus terminal when first built but was actually a large traffic circle with a major war memorial in the centre. Today it is only one of a handful of remaining traffic circles in Bangkok. Most of them are traffic light controlled and do not operate like a western style roundabout.
Due to its large open area and close proximity to the inner city it was the perfect place for large numbers of urban bus routes to start at or pass though. Since WW2 Victory Monument has been at the heart of the Bangkok mass transport bus system. There are over 100 different bus routes operating though Victory monument, most on a high frequency basis. In more recent times the BTS provides a north south link though the Victory monument bus terminal making it even more important. At times around 40 – 50 buses a minute pass though this bus terminal.
However it is a rather poorly laid out bus terminal with very little information for passengers as to where the buses depart from within the terminal. Also the buses tend to stop in random locations resulting in traffic delays and making it harder to know where to wait for the bus. There can be rows of buses 4 deep in parts of the terminal forcing passengers to walk around the other buses to find their bus.
Another big problem with Victory Monument bus terminal is that it’s not a bus only area. This means that the terminal also has to deal with large volumes of through mixed traffic on 2 major roads. This often results in long delays entering and exiting the terminals and at peak times total gridlock within the terminal. This is something that will have to be fixed up in future years if the terminal is to cope with ever increasing numbers of passengers. The vast majority of bus passengers transfer to other buses at Victory Monument.
The bus terminal at Victory Monument it broken up into 4 sections these sections are based on the general direction of travel upon leaving the terminal and not the final destination of the buses.
Buses that head north along Phahon Yothin Road depart from the North – West side of the terminal.
Buses that head south along Phaya Thai Road depart from the South – East side of the terminal.
Buses that head west along Ratchawithi Road depart from the South – West side of the terminal.
Buses that head east along Ratchawithi Road depart from the North – East side of the terminal.
Also bus Route 551 to Suvarnabhumi Airport departs from this section of the terminal.
Located under the expressway to the north of Victory Monument is a very small but crowded expressway van terminal with high frequency van services to a wide range of outer suburban locations such as Pak Kret, Rama 2, Rangsit. Unlike the much larger bus terminal the services are well marked albeit in Thai language and each route has a queuing area. Most of these privately operated van service operate on a continuous shuttle basis from around 6am to 11pm 7 days a week. Also lower frequency intercity Van services depart from this terminal but the passengers wait inside the Van instead of queuing up outside.
1. This is an image of the expressway van from Rama 2 just after it had arrived at Victory monument. BMTA Van number 71/1 - 21. These vans hold 15 passengers maximum.
2. This is a general view of the Van terminal looking east towards the passenger waiting area. The empty space on the right is the stop for the Rama 2 expressway Van service.
3. This is another general view of the Van terminal looking south to the left is the loading area for the outer suburban Expressway Van services. In the middle of the image is a newer 15 seat Toyota expressway Van.
4. This is a shot of the signs indicting the various intercity locations that are available from this terminal. The vans for intercity locations normally depart from next to this expressway support.
5. This is a general view of the passenger waiting are looking north. Like most thai mass transport terminals there are endless street food stalls and drinks stands. The white boards are used to control which van will run what trip.
6. This is a shot of the Rama 2 van stop at Victory monument. This service costs 30 baht per trip and takes about 45 mins to complete the route. This service is about 30 mins faster than the expressway bus service operated by BMTA.
Victory Monument Bus Terminal North West Section.
The buses that depart from this section are the following:
8, 26, 27, 28, 29, 34, 38, 39, 54, 59, 63, 74, 77, 97, 108, 159, 204, 157, 177, 502, 503, 509, 510, 522, 166.
All of these routes exit the bus terminal to the north either via expressway or Phahon Yothin Road.
7. This is a general view of the North Western section of Victory Monument looking to the south west. This section is the best laid out of all the terminal sections with 3 separate roads for buses.
8. This is a shot of a Route 8: Happy Land Market – Memorial Bridge bus. Bus number 35 – 102. Bus type unknown.
9. This is a shot of a Route 97: Victory Monument – Nonthaburi bus. Bus number BMTA 7 – 55086. Bus type Isuzu. Note: the door was closing at the time I took the shot. This service is a 24 hour route.
10. This is a shot of a Route 69: Tha It – Victory Monument bus. Taken as it approached the North East section of the terminal. Bus number 69 – 3. Bus type unknown.
11. This is a general view of the North West section taken from the footbridge at Victory monument.
12. This is a shot of a Route 8 bus as it was departing the bus terminal with a new Chinese made Route 29 bus following. Bus number 39 – 121. Bus type old merc. This route seems to have borrowed buses from other routes hence the non matching bus numbers.
13. This is a shot of a Route 29: Hualamphong – Thammasat Rangsit bus. Bus number 29 – 22. Bus type Golden Dragon. Taken from footbridge at Victory monument. Note: this bus is very new as its still on red temporary number plates.
14. This is an image of a Route 26: Victory Monument – Minburi bus. Bus number BMTA 2 – 4073. Bus type Hino. This service is a 24 hour service. An expressway version of this route operates between 4pm and 6pm weekdays.
15. This is a general view of the North West section of the Victory Monument bus terminal. This time with a typical line up of buses waiting to unload and load passengers. Also in this image there are two route 26 buses.
16. This is a general view of Phahon Yothin road. This is main northern approach road to Victory Monument. It is common to see jams of traffic here mostly made up of hundreds of buses. This also shows the problem of Mixed traffic at this bus terminal. At peak there can be traffic jams stretching back for over 10 km just to enter the Victory Monument area.
17. This is another general view of the North West section of Victory Monument. Taken from the footbridge looking west. This again shows a great line up of buses waiting in the terminal. Note this image was taken only a few minutes after the earlier line up of buses.
18. This is a shot of a Route 515: Victory Monument – Ban Aue Arthon (Salaya) bus. Taken from the footbridge looking south. Bus number BMTA 6 – 56121. Bus type Isuzu.
19. This is an image of a Route 18: Victory Monument – Tha It Bus. Taken as it passed though Victory Monument. Bus number BMTA 7 – 50534. Bus type Hino.
20. This is a shot of a Route 12: Huai Khwang – Setthakan bus. Taken as it was entering the north east section of the terminal. Bus number unknown. Bus type old Merc mini bus.
21. This is a shot of a Route 539: Victory Monument – Om Yai bus. Taken on its final approached into Victory Monument. Bus number 539 – 19. Bus type Golden Dragon.
22. This is a picture of a Route 536: Mochit 2 – Paknam expressway bus. Taken as it approached the south east section of Victory Monument. Bus number BMTA 3 – 6717. Bus type Merc O305.
23. This is a shot of a Route 14: Sri Yan – Chong Nonsi bus. Taken as it approached the south east section of Victory Monument. Bus number unknown. Bus type unknown.
24. This is a short movie of various buses arriving at Victory Monument. Note how a Route 92 bus is blocking off access to the terminal forcing the other buses to push past. Also some of the buses operate with there doors wide open with passengers onboard. Also count how many buses went past in under 2 mins on a Saturday afternoon.
3 comments:
Hi thaitransit
ich bin's noch 'mal.Gerade schreibe ich einen Artikel über eine Busfahrt vom Victory-Monument
über Rangsit nach Bangsai.Mit Bus 59 und Bus 383.
Darf ich von Dir ein paar Busbilder verwenden?
Sollte mein Bericht veröffentlich werden,erscheinen Deine Bilder natürlich unter Deinem Namen.
Über eine Antwort würde ich mich freuen.
Mach's gut
pivatana
The bus of route 8 in picture 12 isn't borrowed from any other route. Number 39 in "39-121" indicates the subcontractor number.
This number is in the same series with the BMTA zones, where it used to begin from 1 to 11. Now the BMTA zones have been rearranged to 1 to 8 only. Zone 11, which used to be the zone for all air-con buses was terminated. All the air-con routes were distributed into the non air-con zones as they are nowadays.
Subcontractor number ranges from 21 to 40+. Until about 5 - 10 years ago, when BMTA started to subcontract many of its routes, the practice of spraying subcontractor number on the bus has been gradually disappeared. I think it is to avoid passenger's confuse whether it is the route number or not.
Examples of subcontractor number that still exist on the bus is subcontractor number 21 operating route 57.
Subcontractor numbers 32 to 39 operate route 8.
Subcontractor number 45 operates route 92.
Probably the reason why the subcontractor still remains on the bus for these routes is because there are more than one subcontractors in that particular route.
Most of subcontractor buses do not have subcontractor numbers on them anymore.
i am very much impressed by your beautiful message giving and inspirational initiative and deleivering beautiful informations
nishkam suryapani
was in bankok few days back
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