TRANSPORTING passengers from their doorstep to the nearest LRT station is no easy feat.
With 15 new stations on the Kelana Jaya-Sri Petaling line, the new fleet of feeder buses has proven insufficient in pockets of Subang Jaya, Shah Alam and Puchong.
At present, 54 buses have been deployed to cover these areas.
However, residents have complained since late June that the service did not include many neighbourhoods which are not within walking distance to LRT stations.
RapidKL chief operating officer Mohd Azam Omar said the problem was multifaceted involving the networking system, operation costs and ridership.
RapidKL is responsible for providing feeder buses as well as trunk road buses (Rapid buses).
“In December last year, the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) implemented the Bus Network Revamp (BNR) in hopes of providing better connectivity by giving more focus on the routes and service,” said Mohd Azam.
“Since Rapid bus services 70% of the routes, the BNR plan suggested we surrender 27 routes, serviced by trunk road buses, because it was believed that other operators could manage the routes as well as RapidKL.
“Priority was always given to connectivity over service quality. For example, a late bus is not as critical as no bus connection in an area.
“Complying with the BNR, we surrendered 27 routes in Puchong, Kepong and Sungai Besi.
“However, other operators failed to fulfil the basic requirements including having a bus to service the routes given to them.
“Within two weeks of the BNR, RapidKL was asked to take back the routes in Sungai Besi and Puchong in stages, starting January this year,” he added.
Mohd Azam said before RapidKL could reinstate its services on the reverted routes, the Kelana Jaya-Sri Petaling LRT Extension Line was launched.
Rapid was then tasked to have feeder buses to ferry passengers to 15 new LRT stations.
With a surge of new routes to service, operational costs and ridership were the major factors in determining a route’s priority.
“The main intention of a feeder bus is to ferry passengers to the nearest LRT or BRT station.
“However, the costs to operate a bus, whether it is a feeder or for a trunk road, is the same which is RM800 a day.
“This cost includes the driver’s wages and maintenance.
“Compared to other bus operators, who only operate when there is load, Rapid buses operate during off-peak hours as well, regardless of load.
“However, even though a large number of LRT stops have increased demand for feeder buses, the ridership in many areas is still low and we cannot afford to service all the routes because we do not have enough drivers.
Passengers on board the T776 feeder bus from Taipan Station to Subang Mewah. Mohd Azam says unlike other buses, Rapid buses operate during off-peak hours as well, regardless of load.
“We are short of 500 drivers to operate at an optimum level, which is to ensure our drivers have ample rest,” he said.
Getting more buses was not the issue but getting drivers was particularly difficult, said Mohd Azam, citing policy issues that hindered employment of drivers.
“In Malaysia, drivers are graded as unskilled workers, which categorises them no differently from maids, rubbish collectors and gardeners.
“This leads to poor salary scale with a minimum wage of RM1,000 a month (previously RM900).
“Driving a modern bus with GPS and a ticketing system requires some skill and training, hence, it is not fair to say it is an unskilled job.
“I have been pushing the Human Resources Ministry to reclassify bus drivers as skilled workers, and until they do, recruiting drivers will be a very difficult process because it is simply not an attractive job,” he said.
He added that at present, some Rapid bus drivers were already forced to clock in 12 to 14 hours instead of the usual 10-hour shift to service the routes.
To resolve the feeder bus problem, Mohd Azam highlighted three viable options.
“Firstly, the system that categorises bus drivers as unskilled workers needs to change, in order for us to recruit more drivers to service new routes.
“Secondly, I have already proposed to SPAD to create another level of public transport such as getting smaller vehicles to cover unserviced pockets of areas.
“Feeder buses cannot serve interior regions or some neighbourhoods which are deeper than others because it makes the journey too long and inconvenient for other passengers.
“Localised transit or smaller vehicles can not only access smaller roads, but can reach passengers in these areas more effectively and bring them to the nearest bus station or LRT station.
“Another strong option is for the authorities to assist in creating more Smart Selangor buses.
“These buses will not only alleviate our operational costs but also enable us to provide wider service coverage.
“With either one of these solutions in place, RapidKL can hopefully afford to place 300 more buses to service new routes by end of this year,” he said.
With regard to free Smart Selangor buses, Selangor Investment Committee chairman for Industry and Commerce, Small and Medium Enterprises and Transportation and senior executive councillor Datuk Teng Chang Khim said the buses were not designed to act as a feeder bus service for the LRT line.
“The bus service is not made to fulfil the lack of the feeder buses by RapidKL. We will not take that into consideration.
“Smart Selangor’s main purpose is to connect residents to prime locations of interest such as schools, colleges and shopping centres. If there are LRT, KTM or bus stations along the routes, we will include the stops in the route.
“Otherwise, we will not intentionally consider connecting to the LRT stations,” he said.
Teng said finalisation on Smart Selangor bus routes had followed a multi-step decision-making process.
“Before we decide on any route, we study the needs of the people based on feedback from respective local councils and the councillors.
“From that, we do a test run and if it fares well, we seek approval from SPAD and then table it to the State Planning Committee,” he said.
On the possibility of new routes, Teng said four new Smart Selangor routes were in the pipeline and would be launched by next month.
“We have proposed four new routes that are still under assessment and hopefully will be launched by September.
“Two of the routes are in Subang Jaya and two in Shah Alam.” he said, adding that there were 34 Smart Selangor buses currently in service.
