Enhancing the standard and quality of the Thai railway industry through German-Thai partnerships

Prof. Dr. -Ing. Nisai Fuengwarodsakul

The German-Thai Railway Association (GTRA) is Thailand’s first and only association with a mission to support railway co-operation between Germany and Thailand. It was formed on 23 November 2016 to carry out activities in the framework of the Joint Declaration of Intent (JDI) between the Thai Ministry of Transport and the German Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. The goal was to enhance German-Thai collaboration in developing railway industry and service quality in Thailand. GTRA was officially registered in September 2021 to act on legal activities, partnership management and so forth.

In this interview, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Nisai Fuengwarodsakul, GTRA Chairman, discussed the association’s history, activities and the future. Prof. Dr.-Ing Fuengwarodsakul is also Dean of the Sirindhorn International Thai-German Graduate School of Engineering (TGGS), at King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB).

What are the important and unique roles of GTRA?

Associations such as GTRA are founded around the world to drive partnerships and activities. As for our activities, we focus on boosting the collaboration of German-Thai partners as the key point in developing the quality of railway transportation in Thailand as well as supporting the development of the value chains in Thailand. To reach those goals, the Thai-German collaboration will support the Thai railway industry in learning state-of-the-art and highstandard technology from the German counterpart. The railway system in Germany is wellknown and recognised as one of the leaders for its quality. Therefore, we think that joining hands with Germany could help expedite the development of our railway technology and our railway service quality to reach the same level in a short time. In addition, we also focus on developing the supply chain in Thailand’s railway business in order to build-up the attractiveness for Thailand as the manufacturing base in the region.

Technology localisation and technology transfer from Germany to Thailand are the key elements in our association. German partners, e.g., companies or universities, come to Thailand to join hands with Thai partners in developing parts or products or performing joint projects. Both partners share the mutual benefits in a fair way corresponding to their contributions. GTRA will serve as a communication and networking platform to initiate and facilitate such activities.

The most important resource in railway industry is human. We also aim at elevating the standard of the human resource development for the railway industry in Thailand. Therefore, the educational and research institutes have a vital role in GTRA. We vigorously promote the collaboration among the educational and research institutions and industry in human resource development activities, such as training, internship, research projects etc.

What is the current concrete project that GTRA is working on to help develop the Thai Railway?

We have workshops as the basis activities to keep the communication among our members alive. Several workshops have been organised since the beginning of the German-Thai Railway Partnership in 2017. Through these workshops, we have created a networking platform and accumulated more members in the network. Our plan is to offer a workshop every quarter as a regular basis.

Other activities include knowledge transfers by some German companies such as Siemens Mobility. As a member of GTRA, Siemens Mobility has supported multiple knowledge transfers by providing speakers for workshops. The company sends technicians or experts to universities to share knowledge at special guest lectures. Such activities at King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) are good examples.

In addition, King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB) has started to translate German books in railways engineering. The first one was Schienen fahrzeugtechnik, written by Joachim Ihme, published in Thailand about two years ago. This activity is an initiative by GTRA members and recognised as a contribution related to German-Thai technology transfer.

There have been many examples of collaboration initiated by GTRA in the educational sector. For example, Chulalongkorn University in partnership with KMUTNB offers a joint master's degree in railway vehicle and infrastructure engineering. This programme is run in collaboration with RWTH-Aachen University in Germany. In this three-year Master program, students will spend at least one year in Germany. Now we are close to receiving recognition of a double degree so that graduates will gain degrees from both the German and Thai universities equivalently.

As another example, an MoU of academic collaboration in railway technology between Mahidol University and TU-Dresden has been signed and initiated from the German-Thai Railway Partnership.

As a further step, we would like to develop our activities to the next more concrete level. We are planning to bring people together to co-develop projects and get public funding in research and development from funding agencies or programs such as Program Management Unit for Competitiveness (PMUC), which is specialised in funding projects that develop technology localisation or transfer. Can Thai private companies participate in the improvement of the railroad system, for example, through supplying material?

Can Thai private companies participate in the improvement of the railroad system, for example, through supplying material?

Two things run in parallel: demand and supply; or question and answer. We have to match them properly to create a transaction. Basically, humans tend to work with the people they know or trust. Trust can be gained by knowing each other for a long time. For this purpose, GTRA serves as a communication platform for bringing trust between partners. When Thai private companies join this network of GTRA, they can offer their products and make themselves visible to German companies who are also seeking suppliers or partners. This will increase the chance for the Thai private companies to match their supply to the demand of those German companies or even the Thai operators. GTRA also offers the opportunity even for Thai private companies that have no background in railways, to join and seek opportunities in our network.

Due to the differences in terms of demographic and geographic, is there any difficulty in applying the knowledge in the German context in Thailand?

Of course, the differences in terms of demographic and geographic do exist. For example, the railways network planning in Germany has to deal with distributed population in many cities. The largest city Berlin has the population of 3.8 million, whereas Bangkok has the population of more than 10 million. By this aspect, the railways network in Thailand has to be planned in a different way. However, these differences do not present much difficulties, because they can be normally overcome by good engineering solutions.

“ There are many strong points of the collaboration with the German railways, such as fairness in benefit sharing, high quality technology and readiness in technology transfer.”

The real difficulty exists in other aspect. Actually, the technological knowledge in railway engineering itself is not the difficulty, the Thai society can learn and understand the knowledge and experience from the German railway industry easily. However, the actual action of adopting products or technologies or standard to be used in Thailand is much more difficult because it requires the approval by the relevant authorities. If you look into the details of the major organisations that offer the railway transportation service, all of them are related to or governed by the government in some degree. For those authorities to make a decision of adopting knowledge, technology products, or standards from Germany or other countries, there are so many verification and approval processes before the responsible persons or the authorities would make a decision and approve. It is usual that people often hesitate to change or adopt a new technology to replace what they have used so far, if they are not fully convinced that the new technology will not cause any trouble.

Therefore, for convincing the Thai authorities to adopt or accept the new products or standards, many iterations of communication are needed. GTRA could facilitate this process by offering communication channels and the platform for co-operation without being biased by business interests. There are many organisations or companies in the network of GTRA which are competent to deliver impartial opinion and information to the authorities for developing the standard of the railway service, using the experiences from foreign countries like Germany.

In your opinion, is there any specific area in Thailand that needs to be developed in terms of the railway? How can German companies support that requirement?

Since Thailand has adopted railway technologies from foreign countries and we do not possess our own technology, there is always potential work to be developed in any area. Therefore, in all branches related to the Thai railway industrial sector, ranging from policymaking, environmental and economic impact assessment, maintenance, supply chain of spare parts and etc., we can learn from our German partners. The key support by the German companies would be the development of the value and supply chain in Thailand including human resource development. The development of the value chain can be done by the technology transfer and localisation. For the human resource development, the German companies can involve with the educational and research institute through the activities such as internship, training courses, research projects.

In your current position as Chairman of GTRA, what is your vision regarding future German-Thai Railways?

I would prefer to remain frank and realistic on this issue. There are many countries, which would like to contribute in the development of the Thai railway industry. Any country can feel free to help and the Thai railway should be open and enjoy this competition because they can choose the best options for collaboration with various partners from different countries.

For my stance as chairman of GTRA, I see distinct mutual benefits of the collaboration with the German railway industry and they do show willingness to collaborate. There are many strong points of the collaboration with the German railways, such as fairness in benefit sharing, high quality technology and readiness in technology transfer. As we have seen in the past, Germany has supported China to develop the Maglev train through the technology transfer in the Shanghai Maglev project. The technology transfer including human resource development is an important foundation which makes the Chinese railway industry strong as we know today.

GTRA could play a vital role in promoting and supporting any kind of healthy collaborations between the German-Thai Railway partnership, so that in the future the Thai railway industry is strong and able to supply high quality rail transportation technology not only domestically but also for international level. In my vision, the German- Thai railways partnership will be successful and sustainable only when we have the fairness in benefit sharing with balance between giving and taking and with balance between public and corporate benefits. For GTRA, it is our responsibility and challenge to present this philosophy in the foreground and to implant this spirit into all activities of GTRA.

In addition, we should not limit the German- Thai railway partnership in one direction that the German railway industry helps develop the Thai railway industry only. There are so many possibilities that the German railway industry could learn and gain experience from the Thai railways industry. In the future, GTRA should make it more visible that the mutual contribution to the development of both German-Thai railway is possible

Interviewed by Piramon Siengchareon, Corporate Services Department trainee.

Contact details:

Prof. Dr. -Ing. Nisai Fuengwarodsakul, Chairman, German-Thai Railway Association (GTRA), gtra.gtrp@gmail.com, https://www.gtra.in.th