Loke: My50 pass for Penang bus commuters soon

KUALA LUMPUR: The unlimited monthly pass for bus rides will be expanded to Penang before being introduced in the other states following the success of the programme in the Klang Valley, says Transport Minister Anthony Loke.

“After reviewing the performance of the My50 and My100 programme, I discussed with Prasarana Malaysia Bhd to study how to introduce the My50 for the Rapid Penang bus service under the second phase of the programme.

“This is because Rapid Penang plies a large number of routes in the state,” he said at a press conference at the Prasarana headquarters in Bangsar yesterday.

Loke said the My50 would be introduced in Penang by the middle of the year at the latest.

Based on feedback received from commuters, he said the study would look at the feasibility of expanding the programme to other locations.

He said there was a surge in subscriptions from LRT and MRT com- muters for the My100 since the programme was introduced last month.

“There was a total of 34,472 subscriptions for the whole of December compared to 30,635 over the first week of January,” he said.

Loke attributed the increase to savings enjoyed by commuters.

“Based on a survey, 63% of My100 users saved RM100 and below, 27% saved between RM100 and RM200, while 8% saved more than RM200 on their monthly transportation cost,” he said.

He said Prasarana was confident of achieving its 200,000-subscriber target which would result in a reduction in the subsidy threshold for the programme.

Loke said the government had set aside an allocation of RM240mil to subsidise the My100 and My50 programme initiated by Prasarana.