00:00Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show
00:15where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day.
00:19Governments often measure public transport success by kilometres built or trains delivered.
00:26But according to a new Kazanah Research Institute study, commuters, however, measure the success
00:32of public transport beyond infrastructure. They measure it through reliability and predictability
00:40and user experience. So joining me on the show to discuss this further, his research on greater
00:46Kuala Lumpur mobilities is the lead author of the report from Kazanah Research Institute, Gregory Ho.
00:52So, Greg, thank you so much for being on the show with me today. I appreciate your time.
00:56This report is fascinating because one of the things that struck me the most was you use
01:02this phrase that public transport in greater KL, quote, works well enough to use, but is fragile
01:10enough to be set aside. And I found that quite fascinating. If we could begin a conversation
01:15there, what did you mean by that phrase? And what does that mean in practical, everyday
01:21terms for commuters?
01:23Thank you, Melissa, for having me. Well, the phrase works well enough to use, but fragile
01:29enough to be set aside. So what we found is that many people actually like the different
01:36aspects of using public transport. Our respondents consistently describe driving as something that
01:42is stressful and public transport sorts of gives many people this chance to repurpose their time to
01:48read, to work or just decompress. But this system is fragile because commuters have very little
01:57tolerance for disruption. So for example, through no form of your own, if you have missed the bus or if
02:03there is a disruption that has caused you to perhaps wait for longer than two hours, these things have a
02:08tendency to outweigh all these benefits. And for people who have alternatives, that's enough to push
02:14them to back to driving, even though it is a more stressful or a more expensive experience.
02:22Right. I can relate because I too find driving quite stressful, particularly in KL. I want to
02:28talk about the different types of public transport. So we probably should break it down to rail systems that
02:36seem to be viewed more positively. Buses appear to be where the fragility lies, where the trust breaks
02:44down for for communities. Talk to me, Greg, about why buses seem to be the most fragile part of our
02:50public transport system here in Greater KL. Well, buses are fragile because they carry the most uncertainty.
02:59With the rail systems, in a sense, all you need to do is sort of reach the station,
03:04and you can be fairly confident that you will get to where you need to go. But with buses,
03:10commuters sort of have to estimate the arrival times on the flight. You have to deal with the long
03:16waits. And oftentimes, once you make the trip, you find yourself in a waiting condition. Let's just say
03:24that it would be more comfortable. So when these uncertainties sort of stack up, especially under the
03:31heat or the sun, sorry, the heat or the rain, people sort of feel less confident about the entire
03:38journey. Yeah, waiting conditions are really important. And I'm glad that your report highlighted
03:45the role of bus stop infrastructure. And also the fact that many bus stops here in Greater KL lack that
03:52basic amenity of, I guess, even shelter from the heat, the sun and the rain. Seating also is not
04:00available. Why do you think that these seemingly small details of a bus stop infrastructure matters
04:09so much for ridership decisions? When we make a decision of whether or not to take public transport,
04:14things like this matter to commuters? That's a great question, Melissa. So bus stops matter because
04:20they actually form a much larger part of the bus journey. So earlier, we spoke about the MRTs and
04:28the LRTs, right? With the MRTs and LRTs, if you miss the train when you arrive at the station,
04:33the next one is coming the next four to eight minutes. But this is not the case with buses. So if
04:40you go to the bus stop, you should expect that the wait to be relatively longer. So in that context,
04:47the shelter, the lighting, the bench and all the amenities of the bus stop becomes so much more
04:55important. So these things shape whether or not people feel safe, comfortable and willing to even
05:01wait at all. Your study also pointed to the fact that there is a difference between MRT feeder buses and
05:10rapid KL buses. Can we talk about the difference? Why were the MRT feeder buses more consistent,
05:20more reliable compared to rapid KL buses? So in our study, we found that the MRT feeder buses were
05:28very reliable. I think they have an on-time performance of more than 90%. So that's a good
05:33benchmark to be in. So what the data suggests is that the MRT feeder buses benefit from clarity of
05:41purpose. So they, number one, they serve shorter routes. They are designed specifically to bring
05:48people from high density places to stations. And in a sense, this is a more controlled environment,
05:55whereas many of the other routes in the rapid KL bus routes, they have to do much more complex
06:01complex work across even congested roads. So that leads to how, I suppose, the metrics of their
06:14performance is not as reliable as the MRT feeder buses. Okay, that's quite interesting. So I guess
06:21rapid KL buses serve a different purpose than MRT buses. But are there things that rapid KL buses can learn
06:29from the efficiency and the reliability of MRT feeder buses? Yes and no. This is a tough one. So for one,
06:40we detected that there is a large number of the, you call it, headway deterioration in MRT, sorry,
06:48not in the MRT, in the rapid KL buses that we do not really observe in MRT feeder buses. In a sense,
06:56they interact so much more with traffic. So our policy recommendations in relation to that is that
07:03we need to implement measures so that buses can move more like trains. And we have often read of how
07:12people are calling for bus lanes. But one of the things that we are pushing for is something called
07:17conditional transit signal priority. And that is sort of like a system to keep the green light
07:24green a little bit longer if the bus is already late. Oh, that's so interesting. I find that
07:32a lot of people when you talk about public transport, they think the way to fix it is through
07:38large capital spending, build more infrastructure, mega projects galore. But one of the things that
07:44your report pointed out is that you actually don't need new infrastructure. What you need are operational
07:51fixes. So maybe you can walk us through some of the operational fixes that KRI is proposing.
07:58Thank you for that. Let me caveat that a little bit. So personally, I do believe that large investments
08:05are at times necessary, but they are not at all sufficient. So many of the problems that arise from
08:11our research is that the problems are more basic. Actually, basic may not be the right word. They are more
08:19human, right? So it has to do with how people feel that the information is unclear.
08:25It has to do with how buses leave early. And it's your general walking experience actually, whether it is
08:31unsafe, uncomfortable and whatnot. So fixing these human issues like how information is provided, preventing
08:38early departures and giving buses priority when they are there, improving pedestrian access. I think these
08:45various small parts of the journey can restore trust quickly. So in a sense, these are not
08:53operational fixes that require large spending and they don't replace existing infrastructure. Rather,
09:00these are the capitalizing points that support and make our infrastructure work.
09:05All right. Greg, you mentioned information, the need for clear and trustworthy, I guess, information
09:13that you can trust. Can you elaborate more about how to make that work to improve the bus system in
09:20particular in KL? Okay. In particular, the bus system, yeah. So if you have used the MyRapidPulse app before,
09:29what you would observe is that it gives you the scheduled time from when the bus is going to leave
09:38the terminal. The terminal here is actually the first bus stop in the route. So let's say you're on the
09:42on the sixth bus stop. You have to sort of like do a mental calculation on the fly and
09:48oh, it says the ETA is 12 minutes. The bus is leaving the stop. Will it really arrive in 12 minutes?
09:56How early should I be? How early should I get there, right? So two of our recommendations is number one,
10:05to publish the scheduled arrival time at every bus stop. So that for me, this know that the bus will be
10:12here say at 10.30 and then I have to get there before 10.30. And number two, in a sense, they do
10:18this already. They publish the estimated time of arrival for the next bus. But I think in a lot of
10:24other countries, you also publish the next two buses. So if you know that you are going to miss the
10:30following bus, then knowing when the second bus is going to arrive, I think that goes a long way in
10:36helping people craft their travel journeys. And these are feasible fixes, right? Providing real-time
10:45information that way is something that is largely feasible to be implemented in Malaysia?
10:50It's very feasible. In fact, I believe the operators have the data already. And the only reason why we
10:56can sort of like do this study is because MyRapid makes this data open.
11:00Can I ask you about that, Greg? Why did you embark on this study? It's an interesting one. I feel like
11:08it's providing data and evidence to something we all suspect. Public transport users know this
11:15on a daily basis. Can I ask you what you're hoping to achieve from this?
11:20So we started this study, well, in KRI, we have sort of like this city's team that looks into issues
11:28of how do we make our city more productive, how do we make it more prosperous and share that prosperity
11:36with everyone. So we know that public transport is a very crucial part of making greater Kuala Lumpur work.
11:45And we have been looking at the figures for quite some time and we find that maybe
11:50there have been a lot of improvements of late, but I think we are still a long ways to go to sort of
11:57realise our ambitions to make the city one that is more public transport oriented. And so maybe the
12:06first intuition that I had was to just talk to people and find out what from the perspective of
12:12people who use these systems every day, how would they frame the issues?
12:16Right. And I thank you for it. I think the report, the research is really resonating with a lot of KL
12:25denizens. So I appreciate your time. Greg Ho from Kazana Research Institute there. We're going to take a
12:29quick break, but we'll be back with more on this topic. So don't go anywhere, stay with Consider This.
