KUALA LUMPUR, May 1 — Prasarana Malaysia Berhad (Prasarana), the operator of the Rapid Rail, stage bus and the Rapid Ferry services, will revert to the normal operating hours of 6am to midnight when the Conditional movement control order (CMCO) takes effect on Monday.
This followed Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s announcement today of the government’s intention to reopen the nation’s economic sector in stages from May 4, subject to tight conditions and procedures.
Prasarana Group chief operating officer (Operations) Muhammad Nizam Alias said, in line with this, to encourage social distancing in trains and buses, the peak travel hours are extended from 7 am to 11 am in the morning and from 4 pm to 7 pm for the peak hours in the evening for all services.
“This means higher frequency of trains during these periods,” he said in the statement, today.
According to him, the frequency for the morning and evening peak hours for the Kelana Jaya LRT line has been set at a three-minute interval, Ampang/Sri Petaling LRT line was set at six-minute interval, Sungai Buloh-Kajang MRT service has a peak frequency of four-minute and the monorail service operates at a frequency of six minutes.
Muhammad Nizam added that the public transportation provider would place additional staff to control passengers at station entrances and platforms to ensure social distancing in the train.
“This is something which is very challenging. We urge all passengers to co-operate closely with our staff in carrying out their duties. The power to break the Covid-19 transmission chain is in the hands of the public and the public transport service users. They must be willing to practice social distancing and support one another,” he said.
Besides that, trains and buses would have special signs to help with the social distancing practice, and to facilite social distancing measures, the rail services would ferry 50 per cent of their full passenger capacity, while for buses, it will be at 30 per cent.
In the meantime, he also advised rail, bus and ferry passengers to always wear face masks as well as practice good personal hygiene, especially washing hands regularly with hand sanitisers, which would be provided at all LRT, MRT, monorail and BRT train stations, bus hubs and ferry terminals.
He added that disinfection operations would be continued in trains, buses and ferries managed by Prasarana including (train) stations, bus hubs and ferry terminals.
The body temperature of the staff on duty, particularly bus captains, auxiliary police personnel and station workers would also be checked before they were allowed to commence work, he said. — Bernama
