Abstract:
Railway system is an important element of the transport infrastructure in Sri Lanka.
Though its share of the economy’s transport market has gradually declined over the past
few decades, it still accounts for nearly 5% of the passenger transportation in the overall
economy, and nearly 20% along the main corridors towards Colombo in sub-urban areas.
The freight haulage by railway is about 1% of the economy-wide land transportation of
goods tonnage.
Though the market share is rather meagre, the congestion alleviation, accident avoidance,
pollution prevention and fuel economic advantages of the railway operations is very
significant. This important role played by the railway system in the Sri Lankan economy
is felt particularly when the service is obstructed during rush hours due to some reason,
where the highways become impassable and fuel consumption on road transport modes
increase. For example, approximately sixty large size public passenger busses would be
needed to ply on Kandy road to transport the same passenger load carried by an office
train approaching Colombo in the main line.
The importance of the railway system is bound to be felt more with more demand for
passenger and goods transport in the years to come the economic upturn and end of
terrorism in Sri Lanka. The scales of traffic that could be anticipated under sustained high
growth of the economy could not possibly be handled by road traffic without having to
incur heavy travel costs and investment on highways. The economically sustainable
strategy would be to develop the railway system quantitatively and qualitatively to become
sufficiently geared to assume the challenge.
However, this requires proper understanding of the comparative economics of the present
railway system, its capabilities and handicaps, and to carve out a workable economic
strategy to reform the system. The present research intends to undertake this task. It will
gather the relevant information and data, appraise the current economics of the Sri Lanka
Railway, and identify the avenues of improvement. The study also intends to develop a
feasible structural reform agenda for the railway system of Sri Lanka to evolve as a vibrant
public transport provider in the economy
