Recently, many mainstream media outlets in Kenya, such as The Star, The Standard and Daily Nation, have reported the steady increase in freight traffic of Kenya's Mombasa–Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway in the past five years.

Since the opening of the railway in December 2017, the freight volume of the railroad has been steadily increasing year by year. Its traffic volume exceeded 2.93 million tons in 2018, and grew to 4.16 million tons in 2019, an increase of 42% year-on-year. The freight volume grew to 4.418 million tons in 2020 and 5.42 million tons in 2021. The freight volume reached 47.7 tons in January 2022, an increase of 6.1% compared to the same time last year.

In order to achieve rapid distribution of cargo from Mombasa Port, two extra-long trains with 75 wagons set off from the port every day to Nairobi ICD, with an average of 150 TEUs on each train; two double-stack container trains set off from the port every day, with 152 TEUs on each train.

Kenya Railways Managing Director Philip Mainga said that the recent completed joint operation of the standard gauge railway and the meter-gauge railway in the Naivasha ICD has made point-to-point transportation of rail cargo available and has contributed significantly to the rise in freight traffic on the standard gauge railroad.