The greatest irony of Johor Bahru’s public transport crisis is this: the city sits beside one of the world’s best public transport systems, yet remains trapped in one of Malaysia’s most car-dependent urban regions.
Johoreans experience, not just occasionally but daily, what a world-class system of integrated transport and demand management looks like, right across the Causeway.
About 350,000 Johoreans cross into Singapore every day.
And yet, on this side of the Causeway, there is still no equivalent system.
The authorities here are still debating all the wrong angles: what system to use, who should fund it, whether taxpayers or the private sector should pay, how much profit can be made, which company stands to benefit most, which parcels of land can be acquired, and so on.
You cannot blame daily commuters for comparing the two cities. They know what they use daily, and what they would like to have.
Johoreans know that Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) plans and manages its entire transport ecosystem, including roads, expressways, MRT and buses, while also collecting certificates of entitlement (COE) fees for cars, parking charges, road pricing revenues, fines and penalties.
Multiple fragmented authorities
On this side of the Causeway, however, we have multiple bodies and agencies: the Land Public Transport Agency (Apad), the Malaysia Rapid Transit Corporation, Prasarana Malaysia, Rapid Rail, Malaysia Rail Development Corporation, the Malaysian Highway Authority, the public works department (JKR), the Johor Bahru city council, Iskandar Regional Development Authority, and the Johor Public Transport Corporation.
Yet despite this sprawling bureaucracy, no single authority is fully accountable for designing and operating an integrated transport system for JB or any other state capital city for that matter.
And when it comes to deciding what kind of public transport system JB should ultimately have, somehow, the federal government’s public-private partnership unit now sits at the centre of it all.
Strange but true, the final decision-making power now appears to rest with a unit fundamentally structured around public-private financing models, not long-term urban transport planning or optimising mobility in JB.
This means JB residents and public transport users could be locked into infrastructure decisions that will shape their lives for the next 30 to 40 years – decisions driven not by mobility efficiency, but by financing structures and commercial considerations.
In essence, the priority lies in how much revenue private companies or consortiums can generate, distribute, and profit from, rather than in delivering the most effective transport solutions.
As a result, the debate centres around how this privately initiated system will be funded, and which public-private financing arrangements will be used.
A public transport system funded through commercially-raised capital – could that business model truly work for JB? Unlikely.
Key mistake
In major cities around the world, public transport infrastructure is an essential component of the overall transport network. A city cannot rely entirely on the movement of private car trips. Thus, any expenditure on public transport, as clearly exemplified by Singapore, must be funded by the government.
The key mistake Malaysia often makes is trying to jump straight into mega-projects such as LRT or MRT – expensive undertakings with low ridership – while basic bus systems are overlooked and remain dysfunctional.
For JB, the sequence matters more than the technology.
For instance, with appropriate consideration on infrastructure, buses could be aggressively introduced in the first phase of a city’s development. This is where any serious transport reform must begin, before rail (LRT or MRT).
This should not be the ordinary buses that are constantly trapped in traffic, but a fully dedicated Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system – high-capacity and high-frequency vehicles travelling along bus-only corridors, with signal priority, integrated ticketing, proper interchange terminals, and unified operations.
A true BRT means dedicated lanes and purpose-built stations, ensuring buses operate free from competition with private or commercial vehicles for road space.
Such a system can only be implemented and executed by the government.
JB does not currently possess the urban density or fiscal strength to justify building LRT- or MRT-scale infrastructure immediately. But it absolutely has enough demand for a proper BRT network to link up with the proposed Rapid Transit System (RTS) that will run beginning early 2027.
A realistic first-stage BRT network could connect Skudai, Tebrau, Iskandar Puteri and Pasir Gudang to the RTS station, the customs, immigration and quarantine (CIQ) facility, major industrial corridors, universities and large housing estates, as part of the feeder services.
If done properly, BRT can move enormous passenger volumes at perhaps one-fifth or one-sixth the cost of elevated rail or e-ART. Curitiba, Guangzhou, Bogotá, Istanbul and even parts of Jakarta demonstrated this decades ago.
Why BRT first?
- Faster to deploy.
- Able to serve more areas and has wider market reach.
- Can be scaled up incrementally with high capacity.
- Immediately reduces transport inequality.
- Allows the government to test travel patterns before committing to expensive rail alignments.
Malaysia repeatedly builds rail systems as isolated prestige projects while neglecting the bus and feeder networks that actually determine ridership.
Phase 2: rail development
Within the next three to five years, a plan to build a regional rail spine, maybe an extension of the RTS, could be devised accordingly.
Once buses are functioning properly, rail becomes far more valuable. JB’s rail priority should not merely be urban rail within the city centre.
The real opportunity lies in regional integration: the RTS to Singapore, KTMB upgrades with electrified commuter rail, a Senai airport connection, industrial freight corridors, and eventually a wider southern Johor regional rail network running from Pasir Gudang to Senai and westward towards Tanjung Pelepas, while also serving Iskandar Puteri.
The single-track rail line corridors are there but it needs upgrading to a double-tracked rail for better service and greater capacity.
The strongest rail corridor, already double-tracked, in southern Johor is centred at JB Sentral-Kempas-Kulai-Senai, and has the potential to go further north towards Sedenak.
That corridor already possesses strong economic gravity.
JB does not lack demand for public transport. It lacks political clarity, institutional discipline and the courage to prioritise mobility over highways and fuel subsidies.
The tragedy is that Johoreans already know what a functioning transport system looks like. They see it every single day across the Causeway.
The question is no longer whether JB needs a proper public transport system. The real question is why Malaysia still refuses to build one properly.
The author can be reached at: [email protected].
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.