KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 9 —Traffic congestion in Malaysia’s capital could ease by a whopping 91 per cent if city slickers opted to rideshare, according to a study commissioned by Uber.
The study commissioned by the Boston Consulting Group as part of ride-hailing services firm Uber’s #Unlocking Cities campaign also showed that Kuala Lumpur residents spend roughly RM16,000 a year on traffic and parking costs.
“Today there are over 5.8 million cars in Kuala Lumpur while the Boston Consulting Group’s analysis reveals that the capital only needs 60 per cent of the cars currently on the road.
“The additional parking space freed by this number of cars could equal 140 Lake Garden parks,” Uber Malaysia and Singapore general manager Warren Tseng told a media briefing here today.
He was promoting the use of Uberpool, a ridesharing product developed by Uber that matches multiple passengers heading in the same direction at roughly the same time utilising a single Uber driver, as a public transportation alternative to personal vehicles and which he believes can help drastically cut traffic congestions in cities.
However, Tseng said Uber will not be implementing its Uberpool product here in the immediate future.
He said Malaysia still lacks the number of passengers and customers required to make the product efficient for its customers.
“For Uberpool to be efficient, we are going to need more passengers and we need to grow the business here in Malaysia. Right now there is a 1 to 4 per cent adoption rate in the country.
“Unless we have more trip density, more people using ride sharing and more routes opening up at the same time, we cannot unlock it here in Malaysia,” Tseng added.
