Krabi Town is the provincial capital of Krabi province located on southern Thailand’s Andaman coast. Tourism is the main source of this province with at least 2.03 million visitors in 2016 based on total passenger arrival at Krabi International Airport. It is also reachable by ferry from Noppharat Thara pier or land journey by bus centralized at Krabi bus terminal. Krabi town is located at the center of these transport hubs, making it ideal as a place for transit between tourist attractions in the province.
Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) is commissioned by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to bring about new ideas and approaches to urban transport improvement in a few cities as part of the Indonesia-Malaysia Thailand Growth Triangle or IMT-GT. ITDP provides technical assistance under the contract to work in multiple cities, from meetings with stakeholders to field data collection.
The fieldwork in Krabi started in April 2019. ITDP alongside Guido Bruggeman and Willem Bouwer, also hired by ADB, as the team leader and parking specialist respectively. The team collected data and directly experienced the situation to have a better understanding of the problems and come up with potential improvements. The team also attended several meetings separately with the Krabi Government, land transport, and marine department together with long-tail boat associations.