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There was hearsay that the government stood firm against this protest because it was instigated by politicians from a certain party and if the government had given in, more would have followed to highlight its weakness until it collapses. Whatever the real motive was, standing firm against the protest this time around was the right thing to do as there was not enough justification for the strike and it created a lot of troubles for people who had to rely on the train services. Giving in to such a protest would have been proof that this government is weak and does not try to maintain law and order in society.

From a businessman's point of view, the firm action of the government this time was viewed as the awareness and attentiveness to law and not giving in to mob action. The SRT board and management did make effective moves, step by step, with strong determination to ease the situation while not giving in to the unjustified action of the mob, starting from recruiting qualified drivers of the locomotive to replace the ones on strike to the taking over of trains from strikers. These determined actions helped lead to a successful negotiation. The sound and sensible conduct as well as determination of the government to maintain law and order in this incident helped preserve the confidence of the business sector and brought hope that the nation still had a corrective mechanism and regulation in force. Such confidence had sunk quite low after a series of protests since the end of 2005, almost 4 years up to now, especially a series of protests by the two conflicting parties since 2008 when the law enforcement authority could not control the situation and, many times, let them out of their hand. The government action in the SRT case is therefore a rare incident that lights up some hope that the authority would not allow mob rule over the law. Should the government persist in this direction of solving conflicts, investors' confidence would gradually improve.

One interesting fact is that the protest was not supported by the main union of the SRT, possibly because of the lack of proper justification. This reflects the sanity of the main union which creates hope for the successful implementation of the plan of the Ministry of Communication to improve the cargo service of SRT in order to attract a modal shift from road to rail transportation. Such a modal shift is needed to reduce the cost of logistics. The latest statistics show that cargo transported by truck amounts to 86 per cent of total cargo while those transported by rail are only 2 per cent of the total cargo. The reason behind this unpopularity of rail usage is the time consumed. Trucks can carry cargo from upstream right through to the end destination without having to change to any other mode. However, in transporting by rail, it has to start with the truck carrying cargo from the source to load on the train and then unload onto the truck for transporting to the end destination again. The current unloading and loading facilities of SRT cannot provide a fast service as those in developed countries and the train schedule is not determined for convenience of cargo transportation. If we want to attract a modal shift to use more rail for cargo, it is necessary to build a new container yard with modern facilities that can move containers in a swift manner. Such a container yard may also be equipped with godowns and modern packaging facilities to improve logistics efficiency. To ensure fast service and to make sure that the new container yard would include the needed modern facilities, private investors should be invited to invest and provide the container yard service since private investors would have to make sure that their services are fast enough and attract more customers to justify their investment.

It would be more effective if private investors would also be allowed to run a cargo train on SRT rail on a rental basis while investors have to invest in the additional cargo train. The private operators would be able to set train schedules in a way that serve the needs of cargo transport and attract a modal shift.

With fast service by private operators, cargo transportation by rail could increase manifold as the existing volume is only 2 per cent of the total cargo transport. Such a big increase would mean that the existing cargo train facilities of SRT are not enough to support the additional volume. The private operators will be full handed with the additional volume and it will not affect the existing business of SRT, and hence does not affect the job security of the current SRT staff.

However, on renting the rail to private operators to handle increasing cargo transport, the union should be convinced that such action would be in the national interest and will not pose a threat to the well-being of SRT staff. I am happy to witness, in the recent protest down South, that the SRT main union showed their logical minds and were objective. In this circumstance, I do believe that there is a high chance that the rail logistics will be further developed and gain the popularity, which could, consequently, reduce the cost of logistics as well as the energy consumption.

Until Next Monday.