Rail transport saw 40% increase in commuters, mostly in and around Bangkok

Commuters from Bangkok’s metropolitan areas were the biggest users, accounting for 94.97% of total, while only 5.03% came from interprovincial trains operated by the State Railway of Thailand.

Factors contributing to increased users included expanding rail networks in metropolitan and urban areas, the department said. These networks included the Yellow Line (Lat Phrao-Samrong section), Pink Line (Kae Rai-Minburi section) and Red Line (Taling Chan-Bang Sue-Rangsit), which helped facilitate the commute from urban areas to inner city zones and vice versa.

The department also ranked the top five electric train routes that recorded the most users in Bangkok’s metropolitan area last year, as follows:

1. Green Line - 264,066,131 people/trips, or 54.03% of total rail usage in Bangkok metropolitan

2. Blue Line - 137,336,127 people/trips, 28.1%

3. Airport Rail Link - 22,495,300 people/trips, 4.6%

4. Purple Line - 18,398,106 people/trips, 3.76%

5. Yellow Line - 8,296,347 people/trips, 1.7%

The department expected the government’s policy of capping electric train fare at 20 baht throughout the route, which started on October 16 last year, to further increase rail passengers. It added that on the first day of the implementation, the number of passengers jumped to 94,446 people, compared to 50,564 passengers recorded on the previous day.

In its report, the department said it was studying routes to expand the rail network in Bangkok's metropolitan areas under the M-MAP 2 plan. Four routes have been classified as A1, or ready to be developed, with total estimated investment of 63.47 billion baht:

▪︎ Red Line (Rangsit-Thammasat section), distance 8.84km, estimated investment 6.46 billion baht

▪︎ Red Line (Taling Chan-Salaya section), 14.8km, 10.67 billion baht

▪︎ Red Line (Taling Chan-Siriraj section), 5.7km, 4.61 billion baht

▪︎ Brown Line (Kae Rai-Bueng Kum section), 22.1km, 41.74 billion baht