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Published on July 7, 2007

Transport service providers have clung to traditional management methods that lead to waste, department director-general Silpachai Jarukasemratana told a seminar yesterday entitled "Transport with Efficiency: How to Reduce Costs".

"Now it's time for these enterprises to use methods that have worked abroad to help manage their cargo transport services and reduce operation costs," said Silpachai.

He said the department would give transport companies that adopted TMS such incentives as fast-track facilities for lorry-registration renewal, lorry driving-licences and training.

An expert on transportation-software programming said TMS would be directly beneficial to merchandisers and transport firms.

The software helps reduce the operating costs of transport companies, which would mean lower transport costs for goods.

In addition, TMS increases the efficiency of transport operations and reduces waste from transporting empty containers.

Merchandisers, cargo firms, financial institutions and regulators must all be involved in adopting TMS.

"These groups will have to set up the same standard of transport management, so that implementation is efficient," the expert said.

Federation of Thai Industries deputy secretary Thanit Sorat said TMS benefited transport management by enabling reductions in operating costs.

"TMS helps integrate cargo-transportation management systematically," he said.

Nopporn Thepsithar, senior vice president for logistics and exports at Siam City Cement, said cargo companies that did not upgrade would struggle amid the fierce competition in the market.

He said his company used only cargo firms of certified quality and security.

Watcharapong    Thongrung

The Nation