Bas Canggih - Malaysian style?

Reading New Straits Times - Only half of Rapid KL buses working
, makes me wonder, what else is failing in this country?

Any more surprises and revelations?

As far as I could remember, DRB-Hicom guys, led by the late Tan Sri Yahya embarked on the consilidation exercise of public transport in Malaysia, starting with Kuala Lumpur.

In the exercise, independant mini-buses operators were deprived of their livelihood. At the end of the day, service by this consortium is even worst that it was before.

Same thing with taxis. Permits are provided only to companies, again depriving the needy taxi drivers from owning their own permit. Reason given for better management and hopefully effecient and excellent services. Each and everyone of us know that this exercise only produced individuals who earn their money by sucking the pain and sweat of all hard-working taxi drivers. Wait for your 'rewards' in the here-after!

What needs to be done is a concentrated effort by ruling government to consolidate those who are willing to work for cheap, affordable and efficient public transportation. For a start maybe let the municipal/town/city councils to come up with the model, with participation of private companies.

The improvement of public transportation would not only means people spending less time waiting for public transport, but, maybe could also reduce the numbers of privately own vehicles plying the roads.

What are the people in power doing daily? They should be thinking of the solutions of these problems, not me!

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Only half of Rapid KL buses working

Only 50 per cent of the Rapid KL buses are operational on any given day. The rest are usually in work-shops. This is largely because most of these buses under Rang kaian Pengangkutan Integrasi Deras Sdn Bhd are eight to 20 years old. The company has a fleet of 1,137 buses with only 550 buses in operation.

Its chief operating officer (operations), Mohamad Ali Mohamad Nor, said most of their buses needed repairs.

"We have about 30 to 50 breakdowns a day," he said after launching the first scheduled bus for the Puncak Kinrara-Kota Raya route here today.

Under this pilot project in a residential area, the company will display its arrival and departure timetable at each bus-stop.

Ali said they hoped to enhance their services by purchasing 80 new buses to replace part of its aging fleet.

"Several months ago, only 450 buses were on the road but we have managed to increase it to 550," he added.

Rapid KL chief executive officer Rein Westra said the additional buses would shorten the waiting time for commuters along busy routes.

He said the move to add more buses was also in response to complaints by commuters of irregular service along certain routes.

Rapid KL is now plying 133 routes in the Klang Valley, ferrying about 1.3 million passengers each week.

Established last November with the merging of STAR LRT, Putra LRT, Intrakota bus and Cityliner bus firms, Rapid KL is tasked with providing an integrated public transport system in the Klang Valley, serving as a feeder for the rail and bus services.

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