KUALA LUMPUR, May 23 — Efforts to improve urban public transport have significantly increased public transport modal share in the Greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley (Greater KL/KV) area, according to the National Transformation Programme (NTP) Annual Report 2016.

"These efforts have clearly paid off, as demonstrated by the results of the Land Public Transport Commission’s 2016 Customer Satisfaction Survey conducted by market research company, Ipsos.

"The survey showed that overall customer satisfaction with public transport had increased to 84 per cent in 2016 from 74 per cent in 2015, mainly due to the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Extension Project,” said the report, which was released by the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) today.

Notably, the report mentioned the improvement in customer satisfaction was also contributed by more convenient taxi services due to mobile applications.

"The survey also showed a positive outlook for public transport use, recording an improvement to 78 per cent in 2016 from 67 per cent in 2015, in respondents’ likelihood of using public transport in the future,” said the report.

Apart from that, the report said the Improving Urban Public Transport National Key Results Area (UPT NKRA) has seen significant investments since 2010, in order to enhance the adoption of public transport in the Greater KL/KV area.

It added that a total of RM106.5 million was spent in 2016 to improve the connectivity and accessibility of the public transportation network within the Greater KL/KV area, enhance the network’s capacity and increase overall customer satisfaction.

"These efforts have now materialised and can be seen in the encouraging 2016 Key Performance Indicator (KPI) achievement of 84 per cent, surpassing progress made in previous years.

"The public transport modal share in Greater KL/KV has also improved from 10 per cent in 2009 to 20 per cent as of 2015,” said the report.

The report highlighted that as the population of the Greater KL/KV area was expected to reach 10 million by 2020, switching to the use of public transport for the majority of daily commutes by urbanites was expected to ease traffic congestion and mitigate its effects. — Bernama