Thailand’s Getting Ready to unveil its’ new Airport Railway Link in December 2009

Tags: Bangkok, Business, Suvarnabhumi, Thailand

The government has recently announced that Thailand’s Suvarnabhumi Airport Link is tentatively scheduled to open in December. The high speed airport train link (ARL) runs nonstop from Makkasan in the city center to the airport (express line) or from Phayathai to the airport (city line), which has 8 stations. This may come as a surprise to many who have been following the saga of this project. After years of planning and delays most people are eager to check out this new additional to the Thai transportation infrastructure.

The ARL is approximately 29 kilometers and has a maximum speed of 160 km/h on the Express line and 80 km/h on the City line. The Express journey takes 15 minutes and costs about 150 Baht and the city line takes about 27 minutes or less depending on the station of origin. Normal rail in Thailand reaches about 50 km/h and this is what SRT is used to. So, when we consider an increase to 160 km/h it’s easy to see why there have been delays.

Construction on the ARL began in 2005 with B Grimm and Siemens working around the land that had already been allocated for this link. It took some time for the remaining land to be handed over and this resulted in further delays. Anyone who tells you it’s Siemens fault that this project is behind schedule didn’t follow the land controversies of a few years back.

The project is now nearly two years behind schedule. The estimated cost of the project is 25.9 billion baht. Now consider the facts that this is the first high speed train in Thailand, that there have been numerous changes in government in the last few years, that SRT is resistant to change and finally that much of the land used along the route was obtained very late and one can come to the conclusion that the mere completion of this project is an accomplishment in itself.

What else needs to be done?

Deutsche Bahn International (DBI) was recently hired by SRT for 85 million Baht (USD $2.5 million) to help prepare for the ARL Operations. This includes training more than 450 staff and creating instructions and regulations for this system. The problem here is that the SRT doesn’t have 450 staff to be trained! A few months ago SRT contracted Chulalongkorn University’s Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration, a prestigious, yet overpriced MBA program in Bangkok, to recruit the 450 staff necessary for the operations of this railway.

We should assume that Sasin will grab as many staff at Bangkok’s other two rail systems (the skytrain known as BTS or the subway system known as MRT) as possible and get them trained through DBI in as much a hurry. There are some issues of concern here as most upper management at BTS and MRT wont leave quickly or easily and this means a lot of fresh undergraduates or men and women in their 20s running the fastest and most technologically advanced rail system in the region. Therefore, Sasin needs to make sure that all of the recruits they send to DBI are found quickly, are competent and are qualified professionals. This is no small task. We’ve got a few months to watch more of the drama unfound in the local press, but if all goes well the ARL should be operational by the end of 2009.

Author: Doug Rhein