NETIZENS who are moving away from run-of-the-mill developments pertaining to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s unity government line-up are training their guns on some of the promises made by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition during its 15th General Elections (GE15) campaign.
One of the many promises is to put 10,000 buses on the roads to boost the sorry state of public transportation in the country.
Recall that PH also pledged that within 10 minutes of walking, 80% of urban areas will have bus stops and train stations – and that the waiting period for any form of public transportation service, particularly buses, would not exceed 10 minutes.
To meet these demands, PH said it needs 10,000 buses for cities across Malaysia with 7,000 of them operating in the Klang Valley.
However, netizen khalid karim Presiden Parti Orang Miskin responded saying that such targets seem “very complicated and hard to fulfil” as there are “too many ministries involved”.
He went on to suggest that PH learns from the Singapore experience where its land transport development is led by solo agency, the Land Transport Authority (LTA).
While centralisation makes it easier for Singapore to plan, design, build and maintain as well as to execute future development plans in its public transportation system, the existence of numerous intermediaries in the public transportation system chain will make it tough for PH to keep its end of the bargain.
In response to khalid karim Presiden Parti Orang Miskin tweet, Angry Cat Battosai opined that it is rather out of place for Malaysia to compare with Singapore whose land area “is just the size of a local authority, hence suffice for a body/agency to supervise”.
hafizan.eth nailed the reality that public transport is never an industry that can make money. “A good example is Prasarana. They make a loss every year. Talking about busses, (PH) really needs to study which route with less losses and got demand,” he suggested.
However, Old Central begged to differ as being profit-oriented should never be the ultimate goal of public transport providers.
“This implies no social responsibility to provide mobility which is the opposite of the concept of public transport. Clearly economic cost can determine frequency of services even down to daily or weekly.”
At the end of the day, Dr. Bigger balls / Membalak contended that the Transport Ministry (MOT) should take the lead “to settle the entire public transport system as it can seek budget directly from the Finance Ministry (MOF)”.
“At the end of the day, it’s not about how many roads or bus-stops but how efficient the busses can move … and the MOT can always ‘sub-contract’ some of the processes to other ministries”. – Dec 5, 2022
