The Study Of Thailand Railway Network Construction Priority

According to the agglomeration of Greater Mekong Subregion(GMS)which consists of 6 countries namely Cambodia,Lao PDR,Myanmar,Thailand,Viet Nam,and Southern China,is a collaboration to the spatial development by geographically focusing and prioritizing investments in priority such as transport,energy,trade and investment,etc.,the formulated and coordinated strategies focuses on economic corridors,three of which pass through Thailand,i.e.north-south economic corridor,east-west economic corridor,and southern economic corridor.With the current global trends along with transport and logistics cost crisis in Thailand,Ministry of Transport(MOT)has proposed 8-year Thailand’s transport infrastructure development strategy(2015-2022).It is notable that the state is promoting rail transport to become main transport mode of the country,since rail transport cost is cheaper than road,consumes less energy,and less air pollution.Thus,the implementation of railway project will help unlock national economic potential and forge better connectivity in the region,promote the cooperation in transport system development and knowledge exchange along the economic corridors,this is a great opportunity and may rapidly enhance Thailand’s positioning to become the transportation hub of ASEAN region.However,from the past inefficiency of the rail sector,burden mounting of public debt and world current transport competition,Thai government has to make the concise consideration to invest in the railway infrastructure project since it requires a huge investment due to the complex process involved with long-term gradual return benefits.Under the restricted capital and budget allocations,it is essential to evaluate the project as reasonably as possible.Hence,this research aims to evaluate the currently developing double track railway project to initially arrange the sequence of rail network construction in Thailand,starting from overviews the railway development situation and economic trends in Thailand.First of all,this research follows the concept of scientific integrity and operation related with sustainable development principles and characteristics of country’s railway development.The index selection must be comprehensive to define direction and guideline both quantitatively and qualitatively.Besides,the index must be understandable,accessible,and reliable.Therefore,the appropriate evaluation index system has established.There are 20 indexes which can be categorized into 6dimensions namely administration,economic,social,environment,technical,transport and logistics.Therefore,preliminary evaluation criteria for choosing important railway projects includes(1)national perspective,i.e.the consistency of a project with the national strategy of transport and economic potentiality with emphasis on freight transport and multimodal links;(2)the readiness of the project to be implemented;and(3)the promotion of international corridor development,cross border rail network connectivity,and special economic zones linkage.Thus,4 developing double track railway projects were selected to study in this research namely R1: Den Chai – Chiang Rai-Chiang Khong,R2: Khon Kaen – Nong Khai,R3: Ban Phai – Mukdahan – Nakhon Phanom,and R4: Hat Yai Junction – Padang Besar.This research applied qualitative and quantitative method to evaluate project prioritization as case study regarding specific data.Economic and financial appraisal and multi-criteria decision-making techniques have been used to assess the investment in transport sectors.In this research,Economic internal rate of return(EIRR)and financial internal rate of return(FIRR)have been adopted to determine project’s benefits to economic,social,and financial based on the supporting factors regarding demand,cost,air pollution cost,noise cost,transportation cost,etc.Freight volume forecast of each project was used to measure quantitative indexes combined with the calculation formula.This paper analyzed 30-year operation of the double track railway evaluation period of rail transport scheme.4 years of construction work were excluded.This analysis assumed that each project will be operating in the year of 2025;thus,the benefits are gained after finishing the construction work.In this case,only net costs and net profits accumulated from freight transport forecast are considered since the double track railway development project in Thailand is subject to improve freight market share and reduce transport cost.Finally,through expert’s experience method,the weight of evaluation indexes was determined.The result of case analysis was ideal.Based on the theory of project’s sustainable development and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method,this research conducted the preliminary study on Thailand railway network construction priority on the basis of country’s development.The indexes that influence the construction time sequence were reasonably divided,and a comprehensive evaluation index system was established.As a result,the comprehensive result of Thailand railway network construction priority was obtained,namely R2,R1,R4,and R3,respectively.The result revealed that this scheme is powerful to yield great significant impacts on country’s economy,society,and finance.Besides,in the R2 project,the northeastern rail network will be completed and connected with Thailand – Laos – Southern China.Hence,the potential railway was linked and supported the transportation to deep seaport in eastern economic corridor of Thailand,as well as promoted Nong Khai’s special economic zone.In addition,in R1 and R4 project,there are still the bottlenecked sections of northern and southern rail network,but they will generate much economic and financial value from cross border trade expansion between Thailand – Laos and Thailand-Malaysia while R3 is the project in the future aiming at enlarging market of international trade,logistics,labor,as well as support the emerging economic corridor in the east – west and future rail linkage of Myanmar – Thailand – Laos – Viet Nam.Furthermore,this research revealed that the results obtained from different methods indicated different results due to different points of view and calculation methods.As an aspect from the expert’s view,the result with regards to the construction priority is R3,R4,R2,R1.This scheme focuses to yield extensive impacts on society by constructing the new double track railway for the first time named R3 in the northeastern part of Thailand.This would bring about job opportunities and people accessibility along the railway network.Additionally,this scheme has been supported by the government agencies and other stakeholders to be the alternative transport mode in the sub-region.In contrast,from the calculation results of economic and financial return benefits,the scheme of construction priority is R2,R4,R1,and R3.This scheme would produce the positive impacts on country’s economy from passenger and freight transport as well as reduce air pollution cost,noise cost,and transport cost from road transport since railway is proposed to be the main transport in Thailand.Moreover,the financial return benefits of each project might help relieve the burden public debt of SRT based on outstanding improvement in the quality of service provided.In conclusion,the project prioritization evaluation developed in this research is operated under the double track railway development project in Thailand.Several criteria were set based on the country’s rail infrastructure development strategies with the consideration of sustainable transport development challenges.The evaluation result does not only suggest the appropriate construction time sequence of double track railway development project,but also offers the effective combination of comprehensive project evaluation technique both in qualitative and quantitative methods along with the construction of evaluation index system that affects railway project construction priority.