Business

Saturday November 28, 2009

Building confidence in public transport

By SHARIDAN M.ALI


FOR most of Klang Valley residents, the choice between driving in traffic jams and commuting in sardine-packed light rail transit (LRT) or buses during peak hours makes little difference.

The Government has set what seems to be an ambitious target of increasing public transport usage to 25% by 2012 from the current 16%. To do that, there ought to be a concerted support from related Government agencies, private bus operators, taxi companies as well as the LRT and the largest public bus operator, Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd.

With emphasis on that and as one of the lead drivers to achieve the target, Prasarana hopes to instil confidence of using public transport by providing more comfortable, reliable and efficient services.

Currently, Prasarana has the biggest ridership; it transports a daily average of 400,000 people on its buses, 300,000 people on its two LRT services and 100,000 people on the monorail.

Datuk Idrose Mohamed says the cpmpany wants the public to associate RAPID services with efficiency, comfort and reliability

Clearly, a lot more needs to be done to boost the country’s public transportation usage, which is still lagging behind other Asian countries like Singapore and South Korea where the usage is more than 50% and 70% respectively.

Prasarana, a Government-own company under the Ministry of Finance Inc, is acquiring new and longer trains as well as carrying out route extensions for the LRT service, ordering new buses and upgrading the present LRT stations.

The extensions of its two LRT services namely the Ampang Line and Kelana Jaya Line with an estimated cost of RM7bil is expected to commence construction in the first quarter of next year. The construction will take three years to complete; the delivery of 35 four-car trains valued at RM1bil will be staggered over two years starting early next year while the delivery of 400 new buses, also staggered, will start early next year.

“Besides these, we are also improving our services via public input. For example, we are upgrading our bus services in terms of interval time and routes in all the six areas we cover in the Klang Valley starting with Cheras,” says Prasarana group managing director Datuk Idrose Mohamed,

“In terms of buses’ interval time, we try to improve the situation by looking at depot, drivers or road congestion problems.

“We also have to modify some routes that previously used two buses to reach the city centre to only one bus without increasing the fare,” he tells StarBizweek during the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) Asia-Pacific Seminar last week.

Prasarana director of stakeholders management division V.Ravindran says different modes of transportation namely the LRT, monorail, express rail link, bus and KTM commuter, taxi, car, motorcycle, bicycle and pedestrian should integrate at conducive transit stations to promote the usage of public transportation. Prasarana is doing this for its Kelana Jaya and Ampang lines extension projects.

“Also, another important convenient feature that will be included in our LRT extensions is ride and park facilities. Our Kelana Jaya Line and Ampang Line extension will include 5,100 and 6,000 parking lots respectively,” he adds.

Among other comfort and convenience features are six covered walkways and pedestrian links to transit stations.

Minding that one of the main causes of traffic congestion stems from convergence of express buses in the city centre, the Government has also proposed integrated transport terminals (ITT) for express buses away from the city centre.

“Currently, there are three ITTs in the proposal that shall serve express buses going to and from the north, east and south of Peninsular Malaysia,” he says.

In terms ticketing system, while there is a common payment system across multi-modal public transport using Touch ‘n GO card, there is no integrated ticket system as yet.

“Prasarana has initiated integrated ticketing system for its LRTs, buses and monorail but while awaiting the completion, integrated monthly passes (RapidPass) are made available,” he says.

To strengthen the company’s brandname in public transportation, Idrose says Prasarana with its two LRTs, Klang Valley buses under Rangkaian Pengangkutan Integrasi Deras Sdn Bhd (RAPID KL) and bus operation in Penang under Rapid Penang Sdn Bhd (Rapid Penang) will re-brand their integrated services under one single brand, RAPID. “We want the public to associate RAPID services with efficiency, comfort and reliability,” he says.

On the findings of the recent National Audit Report that the company has incurred losses from 2005 to 2007 with accumulated losses as at Dec 31, 2007 were RM839.81mil, Idrose says, Prasarana is service-oriented rather than demand-based or profit-oriented organisation.

“We serve non-profitable routes and do not charge expensive fare but we make sure that our income at least covers our operational cost,” he says.

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