This archive report was first published on 11 August 2019.
Kenya's SGR Railway Service Sees Significant Growth ¶
Published on August 11, 2019, the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) service in Kenya has seen significant growth in the past year, with the number of freight trains increasing and the service becoming more competitive with road transport.
The SGR service has achieved its initial break-even projections, with 258 freight trains transiting 23,522 twenty-foot equivalent units in the last three months. This success is evident in both the passenger and freight components, with the latter service starting in January last year.
The tonnage lifted during the last quarter from Mombasa to Nairobi increased to 1,059,215 from the corresponding quarter's tonnage of 1,024,220 in 2018. The SGR line operates an average of eight cargo trains daily, with plans to increase this to 10 containerised cargo and four to five conventional trains daily from Mombasa to Nairobi.
Key factors contributing to the growth of the SGR service include the reduction of freight tariff rates from $33.3 per tonne to $20.5 per tonne, a joint marketing campaign between Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC), Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), and China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), and improved road network efficiency.
These factors have driven the rise in SGR cargo uptake in the first quarter of 2019, with the service time given and consistently achieved at eight hours. Plans are underway to improve efficiency in collecting and picking of cargo at the ICD in Embakasi, Nairobi.
Passenger uptake has also seen growth, with 3,020,889 passengers using the Madaraka Express since its launch in May 2017. The Nairobi-Naivasha section of the SGR infrastructure extension is now 98 per cent complete and expected to be ready for commissioning in the next few weeks.
