The road to disaster is paved with good intentions is how the saying goes but Thailand is going to shoot themselves in the foot again with this idea of theirs that is actually a good thing that is meant to benefit Thai people. However, it will be interpreted as being racist, which it kind of is.
I can't think of any other place in the world where how much you pay for something is based on your nationality, but in Thailand that is how a lot of things are, especially when it comes to spaces that are occupied by foreigners and locals alike.
This latest piece of news is already causing problems with Thailand's already blemished reputation as far as tourism is concerned and it is making international news already and it hasn't even been rolled out yet.
The BTS or skytrain in Bangkok is absolutely wonderful as is the MRT which is the same thing but underground. Together, these two things service almost the entire downtown area and it has been massively helpful in making the city easier and cheaper to navigate. When I first visited Thailand all those years ago, it was still in the early stages but over time it has been immensely helpful in easing traffic and making the city more accessible. These days, most people don't even bother to go to the areas that are not near a train station and they've done a great job maintaining it and improving it.
The train services are clean, on time, efficient, friendly, and extremely safe. As an American whose only experience was with the nightmare that is the subways in USA, this is absolutely amazing.
But if there is one thing that I hear repeated often among people that live here and get frustrated with the government is that "if it isn't broken, the Thai authorities will "fix it" until it is." Recently some politicians who are likely looking for a way of convincing people to re-elect them have put into place a directive that is going to make the use of the trains cheaper for Thai people, dramatically cheaper actually. But at the same time these reduced rates will only apply to Thai people, not to foreigners even if those foreigners legally work here, pay taxes, and likely contribute greatly to society.
The rate that foreigners will pay for the same space on the trains is upwards of three times as much as locals will pay.
I'm not going to get into the specifics because it is complicated but basically the amount locals pay will be capped at something like $1 and the rate for everyone else varies depending on how far you are going. Now $3 isn't a lot to pay to go from one end of town to another, but that isn't the point. There isn't going to be any sort of loyalty card, the rate charged is merely going to be based on what you look like as is often the case with anything that is used by both locals and foreigners and therein lies the problem.
People don't like to be treated like a sheep that is meant for fleecing and they don't enjoy being taken advantage of. I have taken great offense to the amount of two-tiered pricing all around Thailand that I only knew existed once I learned to read the Thai numerals that honestly, are never used unless they are trying to pull something over on foreigners.
I don't think it would bother me so much if they were just straight-forward with it but any time you see the Thai numerals being used on a sign, you can basically be guaranteed that it is because the price being charged to foreigners is greatly higher than the other price. I cannot think of anywhere else in the world that is so blatantly like this almost anywhere that you go.
Thailand already comes under a great deal of scrutiny for how they treat tourists in this country, and now to add more problems to this they are in the process of charging foreigners up to triple the price for using public transport.
The politicians say that this is because the transport is "too expensive" for locals but if that is the case, why has literally nobody complained about this in the past? It is still dramatically cheaper than taking a taxi or owning a car, so why even bother with this at all?
Even though I pay taxes and work here legally, this higher price will apply to me as well and I'm not going to fight it and don't really even mind... I just think they could have done it a lot better than just having a person behind a glass booth look at the color of your skin and then charge your accordingly. People don't like to be treated like this and it is just generally off-putting.
Another aspect of this that has been pointed out is that a lot of the very poor workforce in Bangkok and elsewhere in Thailand are from Cambodia and Burma (Myanmar) yet this discounted rate will not apply to them. So is this really about helping the poor?
It has already made the news around the world as being the "First city in the world with discriminatory pricing in public transport."
Since Thailand is facing so much scrutiny already and actually lost their number one spot for tourism in 2025 to Malaysia, is this really the time to be doing this when your GDP is 20% dependent on tourism?