Swimming trunks

Nah. Nothing to do with that today. Was thinking about "trunk bus services" (kinda like the topic of the day). And I just thought some kinky vocabulary can sex up a topic as boring as public transportation.

Pick up a copy of The Star today, turn to N48 to the Letters to the Editor pages.

Oh bother. I'll just copy the whole thing for you.

RapidKL needs to iron out problems

I REFER to the letter by Moaz Yusuf (RapidKL on the move, The Star, Sept 26). I wonder whether the writer had taken the bus before writing his comments. I have. (KLC: Ouch!)

I tried taking bus 616 from Kerinchi back to Uptown PJ; the first time I waited for 35 minutes, the second, more than one hour from 4pm and it never came (the stated frequency was 15 minutes). I called the helpline and was told that there would be two buses that day, and “maybe” the delay was caused by traffic jam.

These are some problems with the new system:

lThe design of bus routes: they have applied the LRT interchange concept to the bus system. KL Sentral, Uptown and 1 Utama are the stations for interchange. For instance, if I want to travel from Kota Damansara to KL, I have to take bus 613 to Uptown, then change to bus T82 to KL Sentral, then take another bus there or LRT to KL. Sounds simple? But, every change means another 10-15 minutes wait, or longer!

lThe bus fare: they have divided the buses to two types, green for short distances, (for example, Uptown to Bandar Utama) charging RM1, and blue for main routes (e.g. BU to KL Sentral). All tickets are one day passes which can be used all day long. But, if I travel from BU to Uptown, and buy a RM1 ticket which only the green buses sell, and on my way back should the blue bus comes first, I’ll have to pay another RM2 or, wait.

The bus routes are too complicated: they changed all the previous LRT feeder buses into green buses, and added another 25 bus routes (without having enough buses to provide punctuality). If it took me two days to understand the bus routes, how long will it take the tourists and illiterates?

PHOON H.B.,
Petaling Jaya.

I'll admit to you. I live in KL, not in the Selangor townships. In fact I live very near a busy main road. And I never need to travel very far to get to work. I never really need to use trunk services very much.

Phoon highlights 3 points. I think I've talked about one.

Point 3, about routes being too complicated, I have talked about the rubbish route information being posted up at places such as here, here, here and here. The people who need to understand the system find route information complicated, and those who don't need to learn the routes are those that would find it easy. Think: spider maps, journey planners, website

Point 1, about accumulated waiting times. IN THEORY, if all the buses are as frequent as claimed, I think the savings in waiting time can be achieved. Afterall, that was the main reasoning behind the revamp, no? Remember, the promise:

He (Rein Westra, CEO) said the local shuttle service will be available every 15 minutes and trunk service at every 10 minutes. He said the public is able to achieve a saving of minimum 10 to 20 minutes with this new network compared to the old.

But recently, Rapid KL officially changed some of its service promises. I'm not sure how this would help. Although I think, not at all.

If it is a fleet problem - go and buy more! If it is a shortage of drivers - what the hell is HR doing? If it is a problem of congestion - what happened to bus lane enforcement and talking to Bandaraya etc? And what are your consultants doing?

Point 2, why should I pay trunk fares when I travel short distance? In a nutshell, if you usually take a local shuttle (which costs RM1/day) for a journey and you see a trunk bus which is also heading to where you want to go, why can't I use my local shuttle ticket on the trunk?

(I like you Mr Phoon, because unlike most other people who criticize public transport, you point out the not so obvious. It's not all about buying more buses, adding more bus lanes, lowering fare prices, buying more train coaches la la la.)

This whole scenario points out why I am quite ambivalent about the new bus pass structure, where NO single tickets are issued. With regards to fares, it works pretty nicely IF everyone travels a lot. But for people who travel short distance, they are penalized. Either by the fact that they are making journeys that are worth less than what they have paid. Or because of the silly things that people have to do to make their passes worth it (like in the case Phoon pointed out).

There are many ways to fix this, but this is what I'd suggest (again!):

1. Make Touch 'n Go (or other stored value cards) the default payment system. No problem as the MyKad has the TnG embedded anyways. Also sell TnGs at newspaper vendors etc. And try to push for adoption of TnG as a universal payment system, as good as cash in Malaysia.
2. Reintroduce single fares and scrap Local/Trunk/City passes.
3. Introduce price capping. Once users make enough journeys in a day, card functions as a pass.
4. Reintroduce TnG readers at the rear exit of buses so that users touch on the way out, like in Singapore's buses or in the Cityliner. Do this so that Phoon and others can hop on a Trunk bus, make a Local journey and pay Local price.
5. Revamp the whole system-wide fare structure as well (including other operators and rail systems included). Abolish "starting fares". The systemwide fare structure needs to be rethought
   

I guess the whole point of Phoon's letter is that if Rapid KL really wants its bus system to be the successful (and I guess that would mean profitable, happy customers, high ridership) then it has to rethink how its operations need to be restructured, now that it has all the hardware.