Poor public transport system is long haunted Malaysian road user many years ago. I not sure since when it started to get worst until it reaches the all time low where 12% of road user use public transport in KL(now is better). This is generally unusual for major city like KL which is the capital of Malaysia. When comparing to other major city like Bangkok or Manila, i think KL has one of the lowest usage of public transport between ASEAN country. According to a statistic, the number of vehicle registered including motorcycle is up to total of 22 million compare to the 28 million of population. This show how serious the situation had become.
Let not discuss about the reason Malaysia have bad public transport system. Anyway, I can list a few reason such as poor urban planning, national car protection, low investment, giving bus and taxi permit out of control, unhealthy competition among bus company, focus on car user, etc. All this factors will lead to bad public transport system. So what the problem cause by this issue? Traffic jam.
Traffic jam mean there are overwhelming of vehicle on the road and roads are not enough to accommodate the increase of number of cars. This lead to loss of time in road where many people stuck in the traffic jam, pollution to the environment and more money needed to spend on expansion of road.
However, is it poor public transport lead to increase in car ownership? The answer is NOT the only reason. In the past, i'm sure that poor public transport system is the main cause. After receiving information about traffic condition from other city where public transport is fully integrated, i have different view about this issue. Cities that have good public transport system such as Beijing, Taipei and Seoul are all facing the same problem as KL: traffic jam.
So from here, i can summarize that increase number of car in the road mainly due to people are afford to own a car rather than the public transport is bad. I can see no reason for me to use public transport where it take time more than 30 min to reach when i can drive to my office just less than 30 min. In addition, the bus ticket is higher than the petrol used (Malaysia petrol price still very cheap). Nevertheless, I hope the authorities put more effort in increase the service of public transport and make more convenience for the people because most of the people i think seldom use the system. I can see a very simple solution just build a bus station with information of the bus route on it.
One day i will see public transport is the main choice for people to commuter daily.
