Land public transport transformation is situated within the overall national transformation agenda led by the Government Transformation Programme (GTP), Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) and the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP) all of which aim to realise the socio-economic aspirations of Vision 2020.
These plans seek to support Malaysia's efforts to become an inclusive and sustainable high-income nation by delivering a high-impact land public transport transformation.
Land Public Transport Commission chief executive officer Mohd Nur Kamal says the feedback on the masterplan was good and it has already been approved by National Physical Planning Council.
“Now, the action is to cascade down to the individual states where it will latch onto the economic planning of the states for the next 20 years.
“Our priority is the demand for public transport and the solution must be there. We also need to address current and future growth of each city and in some cases, an improvement in public transport is also needed to regenerate the area,” he tells StarBizWeek.
On the mass rapid transit's (MRT) line two and three, Mohd Nur says feasibility studies are at the final stage now, where they are getting stakeholders feedback and in the process of presenting it to the Government
“Line two and three of the MRT needs to be done,” he says.
According to the masterplan, mobility demands are most intense in city centres with dense population and the focus of the land public transport transformation may be on urban transportation needs involving large-scale infrastructure investments necessary to provide solutions to scale.
“The Greater KL masterplan targets a catchment of 80% of the population within 400m of a public transport service, upon identifying the baseline figure of 63% and the operational challenges that need to be overcome to increase accessibility which is extremely important for that region.
“The development of other regional masterplans should also assess the baseline of land public transport services using appropriate analysis tools and develop plans to achieve stated targets accordingly, in line with their region-specific requirements,” it says.
For example, the cities of Kota Baru, Alor Star, Kuala Terengganu and Kangar and their surrounding regions are the next areas of central importance.
Each city functions as the main administrative, commercial, financial, social and cultural centre for the whole state.
Across these four conurbations, there is a lot of room for improvement in basic land public transport services and infrastructure. The relatively lower capacity demand tempers the need for high-capacity land public transport modes. However, poor service, accessibility and integration remain key themes that inform a set of key focus areas for action.
The masterplan further explains that an integrated land public transport solution across the entire country will necessarily involve multiple stakeholders across different government agencies at federal and state level.
As the national regulator of land public transport, it follows that SPAD will lead the implementation of this masterplan, working closely with other agencies at the federal and local level.
“They will also satisfy the unique demands of the rural areas. As such, these plans will provide response to local issues identified through stakeholder engagement as well as from the state structure plans and district local plans,” says the masterplan.
The economic and demographic developments over the past decades have brought with them increased growth in mobility and connectivity, according to the document.
“The most recent authoritative data from 2008 shows that the land public transport modal share in the Klang Valley has dropped to as low as 10%.
“Needless to say, the immense surge of private vehicular travel, while public transport takes a backseat, has brought on certain negative externalities such as congestion and pollution,” it says.
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