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Governments often measure public transport success by kilometres built or trains delivered. However commuters measure the success of public transport beyond infrastructure. According to a new Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) study, commuters judge reliability, predictability, and user experience. How can public transport in Greater KL improve in these measures? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Associate Prof Dr Law Teik Hua, Head of UPM’s Road Safety Research Centre.
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00:00Hi, welcome back to Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris. Let's continue our discussion about public transport in Greater KL.
00:17This after a report by Kazana Research Institute found that public transport in KL is good enough to use, but not reliable enough to depend on.
00:28So, can reliability and predictability and commuter trust be restored in public transport?
00:37Joining me now is Associate Professor Dr Lau Teg Hwa, who is the Head of the Road Safety Research Centre at UPM.
00:46Dr Lau, thank you so much for joining me on the show today.
00:49So, we've just heard from Gregory Ho about public transport in Greater KL.
00:54It often works, but only just that. It's fragile enough, the trust of commuters in it, that people might abandon it quickly from a delay or an inconvenience.
01:05I'm just wondering, from a planning perspective, does that diagnosis ring true to you?
01:11Okay, to my view, I think this diagnosis ring is true. And in fact, if you look at our public transport system, we shouldn't call it as a service.
01:21So, we can have the grab service, we can have the taxi service. But when we talk about public transport, it's a system.
01:28So, how systems develop in design, in operations, in the policy to provide you a tip-top service.
01:35So, in order for the policy makers to attract people to use the public transport.
01:40If you compare our country, Malaysia, with some other country, like I live in London for a couple of years.
01:49My professors, during that time, all of them, they use public transport.
01:54It's often said that they drive to school.
01:57And for the more, in London, driving is not very convenient, it's very costly.
02:01So, that's why we have to think about how are we going to design the public transport in such a way,
02:05one day, I will be one of the users of the public transport.
02:09Alright. So, what we also learnt from the KRI report was that rail doesn't seem to be as much of a problem.
02:17So, rail systems seem to be viewed more positively by commuters, but it's the buses.
02:22So, bus systems seem to be maybe the weakest link, if I may use that, in terms of urban mobility systems.
02:31Can you talk to me about that? Because buses are supposed to be, I guess, the most flexible,
02:35the most scalable, the most easily designed mode of public transport.
02:40Why is it often the least reliable and the weakest link?
02:45Okay. And when we talk about, if we compare rail and the bus, we need both of them work well together.
02:53We cannot say that we only rely on bus, but rail is okay.
02:56But when we talk about rail service, of course, I can't deny that when there is a breakdown,
03:03it will become a target by the media. So, everyone knows that everyone will have a very bad impression.
03:09But even though I say this, it's not like I want to defend the operator of the rail service.
03:16So, but we have to know that if we compare with other countries, in terms of the failure, I asked my
03:22students from China, because they here, they are the frequent user of MRT and RRT.
03:28And they always, always suffer, suffer because of the breakdown that I have to, I have to fetch
03:32them out from the station. Then I asked them the question, is this happens in your country?
03:37The answer is no. So, yes, when we compare in our country, rail and the bus, bus even give bigger
03:45problems compared to rail service. But I think this is easy to understand that because rail,
03:53they have their own path move, but bus, they have to join with the traffic. When there is a traffic jam,
03:58as we know that traffic jam can happen anytime. And it's getting more and more serious. According to
04:03my database, I take like LDP as examples, within six months, the jam increased quietly, but substantially by 30%.
04:16Oh, we don't know because we never check. It happened gradually. Then we think that, oh,
04:21it's the same jam. But the thing is that when the bus moving, they move together with the car.
04:27Now, yes, we have the bus lane in KL, but only in KL. And it's not actively used. You can see that
04:34the enforcement is at a very low level. So that's why, because of this, when they have, there's a jam,
04:40then the bus will be interrupted seriously. And the other thing is that because of, we don't have
04:47the good information. I don't know, maybe it's our cultures, data collection, collecting data and
04:53applied data is not our cultures. So that's why we spend not enough resources in doing this. And
04:59if we have the good data, I'm talking about huge data that we can use the AI to help us to monitor,
05:06to manage the bus risk. And because of this, that's why it's quite difficult for us to predict
05:13the mobility of the bus. Once we fail to predict, then it means that we are going to wait longer time.
05:20Because of this, that's why people are not going to use bus risk.
05:24Dr. Lau, can you just repeat so that I understand correctly? Did you say that in the last six months,
05:30LDP has increased 30% in terms of traffic congestion?
05:35Yes, in overall. But this is just one example, because just coincidentally, I take LDP as an example.
05:42Right. Yes, it's an example of traffic congestion growing, but no one's really monitoring
05:47how fast and how steadily it's growing. Thank you for sharing that information with us.
05:52Coming back to buses, you talked about the bus lanes. And I wonder how important is the allocation of
05:59road space? You know, having those kind of bus lanes, having priority in terms of when there is
06:06congestion, how much of that can actually improve bus service reliability?
06:12Okay, this depends on whether we are talking about full-time or part-time bus lanes.
06:18Maybe many people never heard about part-time. So yeah, but of course full-time will give more promising
06:24service. Okay, like what we have in KL. We still have the bus lane, but just in the city centers,
06:30the middle of the KL city. And sometimes we also think about, have to think about whether we need
06:36more. Of course, the answer is yes. Can we utilize some part-time means that during non-peak hours,
06:43it's a car park, for example, it's a car park, it's a roadside car park, then during the peak hour,
06:49it can turn become the bus lane. So to fully utilize the space in the city centers, I think this is
06:55something the policy makers should think about it. And if you talk about bus lane, yes, we need,
07:01we need it so that it can move seamless, move in a higher space. Of course, many people will be
07:07unhappy, but I say that no pain, no gain. It's a transition.
07:14Right. How much would you say Dr. Lau is greater KL's public transport system or under use of KL's
07:24public transport system, how much of it is a first and last mile problem? I'm just, I'm wondering,
07:31if not just limited to buses, but are there ways to improve first and last mile connectivity
07:39that we haven't considered or we haven't fully leveraged or utilized yet?
07:45In fact, we have, the government have done some things on it. So we have the on demand. But until
07:51today, we haven't received any announcement by the government, how successful it is. And if you look
08:00at some successful cases, like in China, they have the, the, the, the, what you call the bicycles,
08:07what you call the, you have to, you have, there is plenty of the bicycle there, you can use it anytime,
08:13you just put in the money, or now they don't put the coin, they use the, the, the, the to pay. We,
08:19we have this, I don't know whether you still remember, many years ago in KL, we have this, but it's
08:24failure. But of course, then if people can make it successful, why not? Why we can't? So we have to learn
08:29from them. And we, words come to words, we need to maintain the on demand service, because not
08:35everyone can ride on bicycles. But for those can ride on bicycle, maybe for them, it's more convenient
08:40to use it. Either we have to, we have to investigate, I think the bicycle itself has no problem. But I'm
08:46talking about the road environment. Are they safe enough? And also the punishment, if you make
08:53naughty things, you spoil the bicycle. Of course, I believe that the same thing might happen in China,
08:58they manage to do it. Why not? But we can't. Right. How much does pedestrian infrastructure fit
09:05into transport, public transport planning? I'm just wondering, because, I mean, if you look at some
09:10areas, right, either urban areas or suburban areas, there are areas where you can't drive close enough to
09:17the nearest, the nearest public transport access. But there are areas that where you can walk. However,
09:23commuters say it's not safe, it's too hot, it's not comfortable. How do, how should we think about
09:29that? Planning for pedestrian infrastructure? I think, first of all, we have to think about the
09:35education. Yeah, like what you said is hot. Okay, I think this is what we call it in Malay, it's manja.
09:43Other countries also have the same, more or less the same problem. But at the same time, we also have to
09:49think about whether we provide sufficient or adequate facility for them to use or not. I'm talking about
09:55the pedestrian. So, if you look at our pedestrian facility in the KL, I would say that it's quite
10:02limited. It's quite limited. It's not properly connected. You will notice that if you walk on the
10:08footpath, halfway, you have to go, you have to walk through the road. I think this is very, very common.
10:14We are talking about the connectivity. If I see this problem, I will complain. I say I'm not going
10:20to use it. That's a good excuse. Okay, I think this is something that the policy has to look into.
10:27And I strongly believe that this thing must be handled more than one department or more than one
10:32ministry to solve the problem. And at the same time, we also have to find a way to reduce the entries of
10:41the vehicle into the town. So, that's why I always say that the road pricing is one of the methods we
10:49have to go for it. And I believe that there is many political barriers, but we have to. And there
10:56are many successful cases. The nearby ones, the Singapore. I think Singapore is the earliest country,
11:03one of the earliest countries in the world to implement this. And until now, they are quite
11:07dangerous. You're talking about the congestion charge, is it, for city centre driving? Okay, right.
11:13Dr La, you mentioned that this requires coordination from more than one ministry.
11:19Which ministries are you thinking about? Who are the stakeholders here? Okay, at least two in my mind.
11:24Like, for example, the DBKL. The DBKL and the KKR. The DBKL said that, oh, this is my territory.
11:31KKR said, no, yes, this belongs to DBKL. But they have to work together. And otherwise, then you will see the
11:36disconnectivity in the preparation of the facility. Right. Okay. And there are people who say,
11:43if you want to get public transport to be used by more people, build more, have more rail tracks,
11:52have more highways, have more train carriages. All of these, I think, require quite significant
12:02capital expenditure, which may not be in Malaysia's future at this time, at this point in time. Are there
12:09ways, are there low hanging fruit, quick wins that Malaysia, particularly Greater KL, can adopt to make
12:17sure that our city dwellers use public transport more? I think my answer is yes. Don't always think big.
12:25And we know that we like big things. Yes, we do. So that can be highly visible. Okay. It can be seen
12:31by other people. Of course, we have to pay. It's not come free. We have to pay big money. And I don't
12:37think that at this moment we are a fault. So if you ask me to continue, continue to build more MRT,
12:42LRT to complete the line, I strongly agree. If you afford to do so, building more highway to increase the
12:48mobility within the KL city centre, I don't think so. It will mess up the traffic. And we are blurred
12:57because of this increase more MRT or build more highway. They are contracting among each other.
13:03When you build highway, so it means that you prefer to stay in car, not on the train. Okay. So this is
13:10the thing. And the other thing is that we are not talking about building more, but we have to make sure
13:15that they are fully utilized. Fully utilized, there are two aspects. One aspect is that we have to
13:20encourage more people to use it and persuade them is useless. If persuade works, then there's no problem.
13:29So that's what they have to think about the policy. I think that the MOT have done a good job. They give
13:35a subsidy, the card, the 50 card. I think they give it 20 card. I think this is very good. And they have to
13:41continue. And then maybe they have to expand it to other, other layer of the society. The other thing
13:46is that we have to have to think about the, have we fully utilized the resources we have now? The answer
13:53no. Okay. One, because of the, the integration, the coordination. Okay. Like for example, that we are
14:01talking about the, because the service is handled by different operators. Okay. Then because then
14:09then they have no, a good talk among each others. Okay. They have things that maybe they think that
14:14they have done a good job. Indeed they have done a good job, but overall, no. So they have to work
14:19together. So that's why we have to think about maybe it's time for us to, to, to advise the policymaker to
14:27develop a special department to look into this issue. Not only to handle the public transport in KL,
14:37but in any big city in Malaysia. Okay. To make sure that the thing is that there are different
14:43services that are properly integrated, collect the data, implement the application of AI. Okay. Because
14:51when we talk about public transport, we are not talking about one or two trains. We are talking about
14:55many trains, many cars, millions of people. So we, we need to collect all this information to help them
15:02to plan properly so that, okay, this can help us to fully utilize our resources without thinking, okay,
15:08building the mega project. Maybe that one will come later. Not, definitely not now. Definitely. It can
15:14definitely improve what we currently have. Dr. Lau, thank you so much for being on the show with me today.
15:19Dr. Lau Teg Hwa there from UPM's Road Safety Research Center, wrapping up this episode of Consider This.
15:25I'm Melissa Idris signing off for the evening. Thank you so much for watching and good night.
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