JUNE 21 ― Transit Malaysia is disappointed with the ongoing issues and problems with public transport in Malaysia.

As an advocacy group for public transport users in Malaysia, we urge the government to get the issues right surrounding public transportation in advance of the upcoming 2024 Budget.

Public transport has some fundamental problems with how it is governed, organised, planned and managed in Malaysia. Criticising public transport in general or calling out specific companies, or promoting competition as the solution will not solve the problem.

Over the past thirty years, successive Malaysian governments have promoted solutions for urban public transport that are mega, large, small and everything in between.

Unfortunately, the bus and first-last mile systems end up with the short end of the stick as the nation’s decades of unhindered car-oriented road and land developments continue to make taking the bus, walking and cycling less attractive and convenient.

It is amazing that our past and present politicians of all stripes have conveniently deprioritise the bus in correcting the dangerous car-dependency trajectory of Malaysia's emerging megacities, when other best practice jurisdictions similarly challenged with suburban sprawl manage to stretch public transport uptake beyond the constraints of the more capital-intensive metro system through well-coordinated and efficient urban bus system planning and delivery.

For decades the GKL bus ridership lags way behind rail, when the bus remains to be the most popular public transport mode in Hong Kong, London, New York and Singapore, cities well known for very extensive metro system coverage.

Layers of past urban bus solutions such as Prasarana takeover of failed Intrakota-Park May duopoly, private bus operators’ interim stage bus support fund (which till this day failed to transition into a more sustainable subsidy model), GKL bus operators’ route reassignment exercise, dedicated MRT station feeders, free PBT-run buses, affordable My50 monthly pass, and addition of double decks and low-floor minibuses into Rapid Bus fleet, have failed to reverse this negative trend.

We do not think opening fixed bus routes to private minibus operators will be any different. None of these solutions addresses the fundamental issue: Malaysia does not govern public transport in the most holistic way. The majority of the problems that riders and Transit members see every day can be traced back to this fundamental problem.

Transit has been studying this problem for fifteen years. Once again, we call on the Malaysian government to focus its attention on changing the fundamental problems with how we govern public transport. This will then lead to improvements in policy, planning, delivery and service.

Here is a summary of our plan, in three short points:

1. The government must be accountable to itself (through the Cabinet) and ultimately to the Rakyat through Parliament, rather than arguing about who is responsible

2. If we want to improve public transport, government ministries need to cooperate, especially the Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Works, Ministry of Local Government Development, and Federal Territories Ministry to prioritise pedestrians, cyclists and buses over cars; this cooperation should be guided by the Prime Minister's Department.

3. Before zooming into policies and solutions to improve public transport, this cooperation must first focus on holistic and cohesive urban transportation governance and funding with mutually agreed roles and responsibilities among federal, state and municipal actors.

The government wants solutions but if the government is really committed to improving public transport it cannot put the cart before the horse.

Transit has a plan to improve public transport; we call on the elected officials and government to work with us.

Our plan starts with policy governance and accountability; once those fundamental improvements are in place we can move on to our proposed solutions.

Effective solutions will require an investment of resources; time, money and energy, but they will cost less than thirty years of megaprojects and incomplete solutions.

Ultimately, we can improve public transport together...or argue about it forever.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.