Purpose of the study is to study how to make a drastic reduction in transport hours of daytime limited express trains in the Northern Line of the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) and to study a transport system to realize such method effectively for the purpose of improving transport services in the line section.
(2) Hopes for reduction in transport hours
The Sprinter, a daytime limited express train in the Northern Line, takes 10 hours 45 minutes to run between Bangkok and Chiang Mai., providing such transport service once a day. Meanwhile, highway buses provide 40 transport services per day taking 9 hours between Bangkok and Chiang Mai, while airline flights provide 10 transport services, taking a little over one hour, to the same destination.
The present Sprinter runs at a scchedule speed of 70 km/h and at a highest speed of 120 km/h. Such service-level is considered to be fairly high for the narrow gauge railway. As explained earlier, however, the transport share of the railway accounts for just 13% of all kinds of transport modes in Thailand. Thus, a drastic reduction in transport hours is required.
