Commuters Stuck as MRT Goes Back to Paper Age

At left, Long queues at 7:25am on Thursday at MRT Bang Sue. At right, paper tickets were issued while the electronic system was down. Photos: @Praerieternal and @Aeffycnp / Twitter

BANGKOK— Subway commuters were met with an unwelcome surprise early Thursday morning when the electronic entry systems crashed system-wide and they were unable to enter the platform.

Starting from 6:28am, commuters could not use their cards or tokens to enter the MRT subway system. Instead, they had to wait in long queues to purchase paper tickets with cash, then wait to hand those tickets to someone to descend to the platform.

System service at all 18 systems were up and running again at 8:55am, the subway operator announced. Bangkok Expressway and Metro Public Co. Ltd. gave no explanation for the downtime.

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Some tweets from queuing commuters:

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