Good public transportation can fundamentally improve people’s lives. It can give people more access to economic opportunities, increase productivity, and boost growth.

Every day, people use public transportation to go to work, send children to schools, or visit families and relatives in the provinces. Many of these trips happen by rail. Although Thailand’s rails are small compared to other modes of transport, almost 40 million people make trips on intercity railways and 200 million trips on urban railways each year.

How are Thailand’s railways doing? Recent analysis by the World Bank’s Thailand Systematic Country Diagnostic report identify gaps in infrastructure, including railways, as an important factor undermining competitiveness especially in the greater Bangkok region, the heart of Thai manufacturing and exports. Old, single tracks with locomotives from the 1960s, and some of the latest ones from the 1990s, have gone past their efficient life... — blog.wb.org/blogs