Ride to station from Thailand => Laos was okay however we probably got a foreigners rate, they charged us 80 Baht per person not including any of the border fees. The Tuk Tuks required a lot of haggling as well. We wanted to go about 5.2 km into the city to our hotel, there were three of us with luggages and they initially wanted 200,000 Kips and we talked them down to 150,000 Kips. This is in Dec 2017.
Good for buses local and long distance. A bus to Savannakhet is 10:30,11:30 then every half hour til late. Beware of the tuk tuk drivers here, they are utter shambles. One guy was blind drunk trying to get us to ride with him and quoting ridiculous amounts for a ride. We walked off in the end and a different driver approached us, we agreed a reasonable price then he took us back to the original guy and ended up going with a completely different man! (He wasn't drunk)