International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 5, Issue 6, June 2015) 512 150 Years of Sri Lankan Railways: Evaluation of the Services from Employee and Customer Perspectives R. A. Kesavan 1 , C. Chandrakumar 2 , A. K. Kulatunga 3 , J. Gowrynathan 4 , R. T. D. Rajapaksha 5 , R. K. G. D. M. Senewiratne 6 , D. Laguleshwaran 7 1 Faculty of Science, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya-20400, Sri Lanka 2,3,4,5,6 Department of Production Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya-20400, Sri Lanka 7 ATT Systems (India) Pvt Ltd, Hiriyur, Chitradurga-577532, Karnataka, India Abstract— Sri Lankan (Ceylon) Railways celebrated its 150 years of service on 27th December 2014. Though its main purpose was on freight transport in the early years, the trend has changed towards passenger transportation afterwards. Sri Lankan rail network expanded to its peak by 1940s under British rulers with two rail gauges of broad and narrow. Later, one of the narrow gauge tracks was removed due to high operational cost, and longer travel times and part of the track was replaced with broad gauge. Three decades of insurgency in the country lead to reduce the full service covering whole network from time to time and only in this year full network come to operational with Northern and Talaimannar line (Connection between South India via Ferry service) back in service nearly after 23 years of abundance. With the development of North and Thalaimannar lines with and upgrading of Southern line with an Indian grant, the authorities plan to increase the maximum speeds of these trains at 100kmph. Further, in the last four years, Sri Lanka Railways moving towards phase lift in rolling stock in order to improve passenger service. With the introduction of Push Pull units with AC compartments with air suspension systems and introduction of luxury compartments served by private company aiming at foreign tourists are some of them. However, when compared with many other developing countries in the region, though Ceylon railways has 150 years of long history, current level of service, and working facilities are not at a satisfactory level. Therefore, this research is done in order to recognize the customer perspective on the current level of quality and to identify their own grievances as well as the employee perspective on the current administration and functionality of Sri Lanka Railways. A survey was carried out with the assistant of structured questionnaires designed for different segments and face to face interviews in order to collect data. Statistical analyses were carried out in order to find out main complications and their interdependency for the service degradations and few other areas identified during the interviews. It is determined that the main issue faced by the commuters is the poor service due to lack of fund allocations for the maintenance of existing facilities and from employee side political interferences to the service has created several managerial issues, high bureaucracy and lack of adequate technological inputs have led to poor service. Finally, a sustainable model has been presented to revamp the service back on track in order to deliver better service with better employee satisfaction. Keywords— Bureaucracy, Degradations, Employee satisfaction, Freight transportation, Political interferences, Rolling stock I. INTRODUCTION A. Overview of SLR Sri Lankan Railways, one of the oldest railway systems in Asia which celebrated its 150 years recently. This service was introduced by the British rulers in early 19 th century for the planters to bring their harvest from inland to sea port located in Colombo. Though this mode of transportation was the main source of transportation for freight and passengers for few decades, after the introduction of road based public transportation in late 1940’s revenues form this service declined drastically, and most for the time operated at a loss. Although this service has survived for 150 years even at a considerable loss, it carries the daily commuters to their workplaces, students to their schools, and tourists to their most admirable destinations. Today, SLR operates approximately 310 trains, comprising 45 Long-distance and 12 Intercity trains, and carries appropriately 0.29 million passengers daily. Not only that but also SLR maintains1420 km of rail tracks, 175 locomotives, 900 carriages, and the signaling network. The administration of SLR is composed with ten sub- departments, and three units. Distinct heads for each sub- department have been assigned and they are committed to report to the General Manager of Railways (GMR), and the GMR reports to the Secretary of the Ministry of Transport. B. Historical Evolution The British, who introduced Rail in Sri Lanka in 1864 to transport coffee from hill country plantations to Europe via Colombo city.