KUALA LUMPUR: The various government initiatives and investment in public transportation infrastructure since 2010 under the Urban Public Transport (UPT) NKRA has seen an increased ridership.
The modal share of public transportation within the Greater KL/Klang Valley in 2010, was only at 10 per cent said the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD).
“Guided by the National Land Public Transport Master Plan (NLPTMP) established in 2013, we had set ambitious goals to achieve a modal share target of 40 per cent for land public transport in urban areas by 2030. With concerted effort, in 2015, the modal share had grown to 20 per cent, marking a significant progress,” it said in a statement today.
In 2015, it said an urban rail fare review exercise was undertaken as it had not been reviewed over the past 19 years.
“The immediate impact was a decline of 9 per cent in ridership in 2016, however this normalised with a significant pick up of 12 per cent in ridership in 2017 i.e from 570,021 to 638,605.
“This numbers does not include the MRT Line ridership,” it said.
SPAD said the the full opening of the MRT Line 1 alone, recorded a daily ridership of 101,024.
The LRT Kelana Jaya Line led the growth, with an increase of 26 per cent or 271,250 daily ridership for the said period in 2017 compared to 215,855 in 2016, it said
It said adding to this growth was the LRT Ampang Line which recorded an increase of 14 per cent which translated to 184,931 daily ridership in 2017.
SPAD explained that the KTM Komuter services suffered a dip in ridership in 2017 due to the Klang Valley Double Track (KVDT) rehabilitation project, which saw the frequency impacted.
This reduced the average daily ridership by 5 per cent to 103,074 in 2017 compared to 108,023 in 2016, it said.
“However, we expect ridership to stabilise and pick-up once the KVDT rehabilitation work which covers the upgrading of track and signaling systems is completed in 2019 to modernise the 42km KTM Komuter network,” it adds.
SPAD said in the case of the KL Monorail ridership, the numbers had also hit a downtrend in 2017 with a reduction of 11 per cent compared to 2016 bringing ridership to 53,337.
It said this was due to the removal of the 5 four- car Monorail train sets due to safety concerns which resulted in reduced frequency.
“Prasarana is taking the necessary actions to resolve this technical issue in stages,” it said.
SPAD said commuting via public transport today has also become relatively cheaper than owning a car, especially if one factors the cost of ownership, insurance, road tax, maintenance and related expenses including parking, fuel, toll and not to mention unproductive hours spent in traffic.
“For example, a commuter can take an MRT Feeder bus to the Sg Buloh station for RM1 and take the MRT to Pasar Seni for RM3.70 and switch to an LRT ride to KLCC for RM2.10, at an affordable RM6.80, one way. This does not take into account the further reduction on Touch ‘n Go and 50% concession rates enjoyed by students, senior citizens and the disabled,” it said.
“The Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) an independent survey carried out by SPAD indicated that 84 per cent of respondents are satisfied with the urban public transport in 2016, an increase of 10 per cent from 2015.
SPAd said these findings reflect the Government is on the right track in planning and implementation of initiatives under the National Land Public Transport Master Plan.
“To continue to attract more ridership by making transit more seamless, SPAD will soon launch the Journey Planner in quarter 4, 2017 and implement the integrated ticketing system by 2019.
It adds that the Greater Kuala Lumpur/ Klang Valley’s record of delivering its recent public transport projects on-time is testament to the forward planning process now in place.
“Many high impact projects are being delivered, and we are making big changes to people's lives from the position we were in 10 years ago.
“Moving forward, the Government remains committed to ensure that our longer term plans to improve the bus network, and increase the rail
capacity on the existing lines progresses well with projects such as LRT3, MRT 2 and the upcoming MRT 3,” it said.