"Can we focus on improving the experience"
Assalamualaikum dan Salam Sejahtera,
I hope the headline catches your attention, as I was expecting you to be swarmed by many emails on a day-to-day basis. I also wish to say, Happy Independence Day!
I'm a proud Malaysian, born in Malacca, currently working in Germany as a Software Engineer and I would like to share my experience with public transport here.
Before we move forward, I would like to show my appreciation to RapidKL, as without your service, I would not be able to land my dream in Germany. You have opened opportunities for me to work in Klang Valley initially, at times when I do not own a transport. Now I'm on the other side of the world! I'm sure there are more stories from our Malaysian citizens, but most didn't voice out, yet.
Thus, as you can foresee, I love our public transport system, but it can be better, especially in the long run. All of these are from my observation.
1 - The Improvement
Let us begin with the improvement we can do. This may or may not involve other agencies to achieve this, but I hope RapidKL and Prasarana can be the initiator of this.
1.1 Availability & Frequencies of Train
This has been the biggest concern, throughout my years using our public transport. Our LRT, namely Light Rail Transport, is indeed light. But don't take the word literally.This might work in the first era it was introduced but as our nation flourishes, we need a solution to this.
Changing the infrastructure such as the station can be costly, but what about increasing the number of trains, per minute?
We still preserve the idea of LRT being light transport while increasing the frequencies.
Germany's train is not perfect, there are times they have delays but since it is highly available, with not being packed in each of the trains, people do not mind this that much.
Someday, it might be called LFRT, Light Frequent Rail Transit.
1.2 Maintenance
The train in Germany, are old but they did a great job in maintaining the service. It is far from perfect, but because the train is maintained well, people tend to forgive the fact that it does not have an air-conditioning.
The escalator for our infrastructure, are under maintenance most of the time and can be frustrating. If the contractor took their own free time to fix without valid reason, it is time to pressure them to use another vendor.
1.3 Escalators, Lift, and Disabled Friendly
In Germany, in some parts where maintenance can be hard (e.g. edge area of Berlin or rural), they do not have an escalator. But they always have a lift for the disabled.
Truth be told, escalators are always running compared to lifts. Having a sensor to reduce the motion can save your maintenance cost a great deal.
And when it comes to prioritizing a "single" lane escalator, it will prioritize "going up" since it is the most energy-consuming for humans to use stairs.
1.4 Event preparation
In Software Engineering, we have scalability planning. If a website's traffic is too high, the system will provision proper resources to cater to the huge sudden traffic.
This is even more important in public transportation, especially in Malaysia. We are multi-racial, multi-religion. There are more public holidays in Malaysia than in any other country perhaps.
Use this information to manage a high volume of passengers. Work together with Data scientists in finding out how much can we expect the increase in passengers, or even use historical data to act as a learning resource. We learn from our mistake, but accept that it is indeed a mistake and agree to improve on them.
1.5 Using existing resources
In the recent Merdeka event, it saddens me that the station is packed like sardines. If you follow suggestion No 1.4 above, you will use the information to provide a walking guide to segregate the users coming into and out of the station.
Add a queue system for special events, just like how people queue to get food from Ikea.
Add proper ventilation, a big fan, and all the sort to help the young one breathe easily. These are some common sense that we would like to be implemented if it happened to us personally.
2 - The Good Thing
As I mentioned, I love our public transport and of course, there are good things we should appreciate and continue.
2.1 Air Conditioning
I am unsure about other countries, but the Europe train is not air-conditioned. This surprise me when I first use public transport in Germany.
All the more reason is due to Malaysia is quite hot, and air-conditioning makes the experience way better for travelers.
2.2 English Support
I had to learn German for basic questions. Suffice it to say, Malaysia is blessed with people who know English. It does not surprise me that Malaysia is one of the top locations that expats chose.
2.3 MRT
This might fall out of your jurisdiction (or it does), but MRT is a mode of good transport, except when it is packed. Most of the time, it is convenient compared to its sibling, LRT. The only limitation is it is for a far-end location.
2.4 Feeder Bus
This makes up for the lack of LRT, but it is still less frequent than I'd hope it would be.
2.5 Social Network Visibility
I love to follow your social media accounts, as it is indeed managed by a human. Please keep this up to spread visibility and human conversation with the users.
It starts with a small improvement, and it will be remembered by our citizens. Believe it or not, solving public transport can solve a lot of pain points we are having in Malaysia. I can see this, especially in Germany, and would love for my fellow Malaysians to get the same good services they deserve.
I appreciate that this is a lot of information. Hopefully, you can consider this suggestion and raise it to the proper channel, or otherwise, do let us know to who we can reach out.
With much love, I am looking forward to Malaysian improvement.