BANGKOK, 6 Feb 2014, Transport Minister Chadchart Sittipunt plans to enhance performance of the logistic sector with an aim of increasing the sector’s annual income from 500 million baht to 1 billion baht.
The comment was made during this inspection of the Inland Container Depot (ICD) in Ladkrabung District, a special train station equipped for handling and temporary storage import and export containerized goods.
According to the Transport Minister, the ICD handles only 1.3 million out of approximately 6 million containers of import and export goods that go through Lamchabung Port every year. Out of the 1.3 million containers, only 440,000 are transported via rail roads. The rest are transported by trucks, causing heavy traffic jams, especially on motorways.
In a bid to address the traffic gridlock caused by trucks carrying containers from ICD, the Minister has instructed the State Railways Authority of Thailand (SRT) to discuss with the Department of Highway regarding the construction of direct routes linking the ICD to the nearest motorway.
He has also planned to increase the capacity of the special train station from 400,000 to 800,000 containers and to increase the frequency of train schedule from 28 trips to 48-56 trips a day. He hopes the measures would boost the ICD’s capacity of handling containers, from 450,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers to as much as 1.19 million TEU containers as well as doubling its income from 500 million to 1 billion baht annually.
