In the past, Thailand railway transportation was basically known as a passenger railway, as
the marketing focus was weighted toward passenger traffic. Railway was most frequently
used for inter-city transport of passenger especially amongst the poorer levels of society. With
the exception of the transport of some petroleum products, however, railway has captured
only a minimal share of national total freight transport. This lack of emphasis on freight traffic,
though, has begun to change over the past few decades. Nevertheless, the total revenues
generated by the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) are relatively dwindling, caused primarily
by artificially low fares for passenger traffic which had been imposed by the government.
Therefore, it is most challenging for the Thai railway to capture more on revenues from
freight traffic and increase its total usage share.