PETALING JAYA: An NGO for public transportation has taken RapidKL to task over its decision to terminate 13 bus routes, saying this will inconvenience users and lead to congestion in other buses.
Transit Malaysia said the 13 bus routes cover a total of 190km and will separate neighbourhoods and districts from city centres, adding that some of these routes were essential.
This includes the 754 route between Shah Alam and Puncak Perdana which, it said, is the only bus serving the UiTM Puncak Perdana campus.
It said it was surprised that RapidKL cited low ridership as one of its reasons to terminate the routes, as this was caused by the conditional movement control order (CMCO) imposed in the Klang Valley.
“Malaysians support the CMCO because it is the right thing to do to curb the spread of Covid-19. We did not expect it to be used as a justification to axe services.
“Neither have they announced any plans to revive these routes in the future, leading us to believe that the routes will not be replaced even once the pandemic has subsided,” it said in a statement today.
The NGO said another reason given by RapidKL was overlapping routes, but it said a better solution for this was to “untangle” the overlaps rather than terminate the entire route.
It said slashing routes due to overlaps would lead to an influx of passengers in alternate buses, adding that RapidKL currently has a 30 to 40 persons limit.
It also criticised RapidKL for the lack of public consultation before making these decisions, saying this was insulting to public transport users.
“Transit is asking the transport minister to direct the Land Public Transport Agency (Apad) to create national standards for when and how a bus route will be created or terminated.
“We call upon RapidKL to reverse the termination of bus routes until these standards are created. Any bus route should be evaluated thoroughly and properly, and public opinion should have been sought for before making drastic changes.”
It also urged the finance ministry and Prasarana to come up with a new model for the public transport system, to prioritise quality and standard of service over cost-cutting.