Traffic at container depot drives costs

Panel has 30 days to tackle problem

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Land freight operators have urged the Transport Ministry to tackle traffic congestion at the Lat Krabang inland container depot (ICD), which they say has added to the cost of transport.

Thongyu Khongkant, head of the Land Transport Federation of Thailand, expressed the concerns to Deputy Transport Minister Ormsin Chivapruck when they met yesterday.

Mr Thongyu said the gridlock at the ICD, which is run by the State Railway of Thailand (SRT), affects traffic around the facility as well as the motorway nearby.

At the meeting, he said, Mr Khongkant and Mr Ormsin agreed to set up a joint state and private panel to deal with ICD traffic congestion. It will be chaired by Peerapol Thawornsuphacharoen, deputy permanent secretary for transport.

The panel is expected to settle ways to tackle the problem within 30 days, Mr Thongyu said, adding Mr Ormsin will make an on-site survey at the ICD next week.

"Next week, Mr Ormsin will call for a meeting with SRT governor Wuthichart Kalyanamitra, Department of Highways [DOH] director-general Thanin Somboon and representatives from the Department of Land Transport [DLT] to discuss the problem, which will be followed by a survey of the area," said Mr Thongyu.

According to Mr Thongyu, traffic jams at the ICD and in its surrounding areas have been chronic for nearly 10 years. It takes between six and 10 hours for container trucks to move in and out of the terminal due to the traffic problem.

This has resulted in containers being delivered late to Laem Chabang Port by rail, he said.

This pushes up the cost of container transport by 4,000-5,000 baht per trip. The problem results in 300-400 million baht in fuel wasted in traffic jams per year and between 4 billion and 5 billion baht in lost business opportunities.

Mr Thongyu said he has proposed a three-phase plan to the deputy transport minister to deal with the gridlock at the ICD.

The proposal states that in the first phase, which will span over six months, the SRT has to make sure concessionaires handling containers at the six terminals of the ICD do their work efficiently.

The DOH has to improve the outbound and inbound ramps as well as road surfaces, put up traffic signboards and construct a roundabout in front of the facility.

Under the second phase, covering a one-year period, a space must be allocated for truck parking with an electronic system installed to arrange parking queues.

The DOH must build a road connecting the motorway and the ICD at Laem Chabang Port.

Concession contracts with terminal handlers at the ICD must be amended to force them to construct a container yard outside the ICD.

The third phase, which would cover two years, involves the expansion of the ICD to serve the eastern economic corridor development projects and the increase of Laem Chabang Port's space.

According to Mr Thongyu, the ICD has the capacity to accommodate 600,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEU) per year, but will soon have to handle 1.4 million TEU per year.