World-class system for urbanites

Efficient public transport systems are unquestionably an important part of any urban city landscape.

The ongoing challenge is to grow the share of users in the presence of the private vehicles.

Public transport does not necessarily have to find ways of narrowing the gap between what public transport and the car can deliver from a user’s perspective, but it does have an obligation to provide efficiency, reliability and comfort.

This is an age-old challenge that has resulted in the Government of Malaysia going to the Lab and positioning the urban public transport as a National Key Results Area (NKRA).

Under the Government Transformation Programme (GTP), the Improving Urban Public Transport (UPT) NKRA was conceived to give Klang Valley residents the choice of enjoying reliable and comfortable urban public transport in their daily commutes around the city.

The key problems that were identified were high congestion during peak periods, unreliable services with cancellations and frequent delays and access to the public transport network.

The ultimate goal of the UPT NKRA was for Malaysia’s public transport system to become the mode of choice of urban commuters by setting in place a reliable, comfortable and affordable world-class urban public transport system.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha who drew emphasis to the focus of the NKRA said: “Public transport is a perennial irritant amongst urban Malaysians.

“The Klang Valley and the surrounding areas are developing at a rapid pace and we recognise that there is high congestion during peak periods, unreliable service, poor connectivity and poor access to public transport services.

“Thus, it is important that the urban public transport system is developed in tandem with the growing population and their transportation needs,” he said.

In combination, the continued growth in the number of private vehicles has also contributed to the steady decline of the public transport modal share in the Klang Valley – 34% in 1985 to 20% in 1997.

By 2008, it was much closer to 1012%.

Thus, a series of principal thrusts were developed to achieve the goals under the NKRA, that is establishing the presence of the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD), decongesting the central business district area, enhancing the bus, monorail and commuter train capabilities and schedules, implementation of better service standards, putting in place infrastructure projects which enable station integration and park-and-ride facilities, and developing the infrastructure to complement the building of the MRT.

“To that end, the Ministry has focused on delivering optimum service systems and working with the various agencies to manage demand.

“Our aim is to introduce seamless travel by way of an integrated ticketing system, establish new integrated transport terminals in Bandar Tasik Selatan and Gombak to enable better traffic flow into the city area and working with SPAD to ensure there is a single point of accountability for policy planning and regulatory oversight,” said Kong.

In 2011, the key focus of the Ministry was to build on themomentum developed in the sector in 2010.

The aim was to push the achievements to even higher levels than the previous year, such as setting an ambitious target of 21% modal share of public transport and the introduction of a new NKPI; that is the Road Safety Index which looked to inculcate the culture of road safety in Malaysia.

Great strides forward have already been made since the GTP started in January of 2010, in the form of 35 sets of new four-car trains for the Kelana Jaya LRT line being put into operation.

The Puduraya Terminal of old was refurbished into the gleaming, ultramodern and sleek Pudu Sentral.

For the Bus Expressway Transit (BET) service, the public has seen the introduction of three more routes to shorten journey times in addition to the initial 5 routes.

The BET service utilises existing highways to link heavily populated

It is important that the urban public transport system is developed in tandem with the growing population and their transportation needs.

— DATUK SERI KONG CHO HA

areas and the city centre resulting in 30-40 minutes reduction in journey times on average.

Commuters have experienced more reliable and smoother rides as the new route reduces journey time, provide comfort, easy accessibility and connectivity.

The new sets of sophisticated commuter six-car trains called My komuter were received for KTMB at the end of 2011 with 4 of 38 sets currently in operations on the KTM Komuter service.

This aims to increase the passenger capacity of the trains, while improving on the comfort level of the regular commuters. The trains had previously reached 1.4 times their passenger capacity limit.

The KTM Komuter has received huge thumbs up from users.

Kindergarten teacher Usha Rani, 55, who uses the commuter from her home in Sri Serdang to work everyday said: “The coaches are good and comfortable, especially the Ladies’ Coach. The stations are good too, and they have definitely improved over the years.”

Also, for this first time in malaysian public transport history, bus passengers were able to enjoy a seamless ticketing experience via the New Bus Ticketing System (NBTS) across all Rapidkl buses.

With this system, customers need only use a transit card for fare payment, thus giving them the same advantage as the population of other world-class cities like London, Tokyo and New York.

All erl stations were also equipped with Touch & Go card readers, making cashless payment possible for ERL users as well.

As well as that, the Rapidkl Automated Fare Collection (AFC) Integrated Ticketing System at the Kelana Jaya and Ampang LRT lines was opened to the public in 2011.

All these various measures have had a tremendously positive impact oon commuters from all walks of life.

The rakyat are feeling the effect of the implementation of these initiatives.

Tong Poo San, who is a frequent ccommuter as she works in Melaka, bbut hails from Ipoh, now finds the experience of taking a bus from Pudu Sentral back to her hometown much more pleasant and enjoyable.

“I find the terminal and the facilities much better than Puduraya previously – it’s cleaner, the environment feels safer and there are clear signages,” she said.

With these massive improvements in the urban public transport system, the Ministry hopes to draw in non-public transport users to try it out and adopt it as part of their lifestyle.

To monitor reliability and efficiency of the services provided, a Performance Management Hub System will be retrofitted and integrated.

Phase 1 of this system in the form of a Passenger Information System (PIS) is already in progress and is scheduled to be completed in January 2013.

Once this system is in place, it will provide greater peace of mind to the urban commuters. For the passengers, it would be mean better journey planning.

For the operators and regulators, it would mean the surety of the public transport service level and performance being tracked in real time.

Certainly, the improvements are also showing its benefit not only to those around the Klang Valley, but also to first time users like Lew Siew Ling, who used the commuter on a holiday shopping trip in Kuala Lumpur.

“The first time I used the commuter was to head to Mid-valley. I just decided to give it a try. I found it quite easy and the people at the counter very helpful,” said the 48 year old clerk from Alor Setar.

As more improvements are scheduled for 2012, over time more Malaysians like Usha, Poo San, and Siew Ling will see the benefit of utilising the urban public transport system.

At the moment, the positioning of public transport sits as a niche market provider, although there is nothing undesirable about niche provision in markets such as central city and regional centre commuting, the low income groups, students, retirees, special event attendance and tourists.

When we look at this so-called niche market, they do represent a large segment of the urban population and public transport is essential to them.

There is a prevalent view that local public transport is only for those who do not have a car but we are slowly beginning to realise that we need to find ways of restricting use of the private vehicles more severely to avoid choking the city landscape and that will involve some transfer to public transport. There is a widening gap between what is expected of public transport and what can be delivered.

Expectations for travel are increasing, both in quantity and in the standards of speed, reliability and comfort. The Government recognises that only upon the delivery of reliable, efficient and comfortable urban transport systems can mindset towards public transport systems be altered amongst Malaysians.

This essentially is the reason why through the GTP, the Government has committed to invest Rm2.3bil into the UPT NKRA initiatives from 2010 to 2012.

The teams are working double time to ensure the implementation as outlined in the GTP Roadmap is met and delivered, and we are already beginning to see the positive outcomes and evident transformation of our urban public transport system.