A boost for buses: Prasarana is partnering with UrbanMetry to harness big data to give buses – the weak link in the country’s urban public transport landscape – a significant boost.
PETALING JAYA: The public transport network operated by Prasarana Malaysia Bhd in the Klang Valley continues to go from strength to strength, with this year proving to be a bumper year for urban rail and bus ridership.Each month, up to November, more than 27 million rides were made using the Rapid KL network comprising the MRT, LRT and Sunway BRT as well as all buses under Rapid Bus.
If the number is added with operations in Penang and Kuantan, then the monthly average goes up to 33 million rides.
Going by the trend, this year will mark an all-time high for public transport use in the Klang Valley, especially when compared to 2021, 2022 and 2023.
A lot of the growth comes from the opening of the second MRT line, now known as the Putrajaya Line, starting June 16, 2022.
While December’s ridership is still not fully known at this point, records from 2022 and 2023 showed that Prasarana served the highest number of passengers in the final month of those two years, suggesting that the holiday season did not reduce the number of public transport users on its network.
Unless December shows otherwise, October boasted the highest ever number of trips on the Prasarana network, which recorded 35,867,157 (including Rapid Penang and Rapid Kuantan buses).
Excluding Penang and Kuantan, the Klang Valley ridership stood at 34,433,888 – still a respectable number in a country where everyone still enjoys subsidised RON95 petrol.
Earlier this week, The Star ran an article on how Penang’s roads are regularly congested, suggesting that the allure of private car is still strong.
In fact, bus ridership on Rapid Penang showed stagnation in the last three years, with monthly ridership hovering around 1.3 million to 1.4 million this year, somewhat implying that Penang residents and visitors still prefer to drive or be driven around.
This underscores the urgency of having the Penang LRT, now known as the Mutiara Line, up and running as soon as possible for it will provide an option for commuters, along with enhanced bus and ferry services.
However, as of this week, no Letter of Award from the government has been issued for the main contractor to start work.
Even if work starts next January, Penangites will still have to endure the gridlock for at least another five years, if not more.
Likewise, train users hoping for more alternatives in the Klang Valley will also have to face a prolonged wait.
In an interview with The Star recently, Prasarana Group president and CEO Mohd Azharuddin Mat Sah said his team is working diligently to ensure the Shah Alam LRT, formerly known as LRT3, will be ready to serve the public by September 2025.
The line has the ability to move 6,210 passengers per hour per direction (pphpd) to provide smoother travel for the 37km ride from Kampung Johan Setia, Klang, to Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya.
On Oct 28, Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Hasbi Habibollah said in the Dewan Rakyat that the five Shah Alam LRT stations that were shelved under a “cost-cutting” move in 2018 are expected to be completed and operational by the second quarter of 2028.
He said Prasarana is finalising the technical and financial aspects of the additional contract for Tropicana, Raja Muda, Temasya, Bukit Raja and Bandar Botanik – with work on these five stations expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2025 and construction set to finish by end 2027.
By then, the capacity of the line will be bumped up to 7,341pphpd.
While the public display for the Circle Line, also known as MRT3, has just ended, there are no clear indications on when commuters can use it.
According to Mass Rapid Transit Corporation Sdn Bhd, the next two years will be spent on land acquisition.
“Effectively, this means the public can expect to wait for up to a decade before the critical circle that connects all the existing urban rail lines will be ready, thus hampering further increases in rail ridership,” said Goh Bok Yen, a transport planning consultant.
For KTM Bhd (KTMB), its focus will be on balancing passenger expectations with operational requirements from its massive rehabilitation in the Klang Valley called the Klang Valley Double Track Rehabilitation (KVDT).
Phase 1 (KVDT 1) began in May 2016 with the rehabilitation of the stretch from Port Klang to Batu Caves, and from Rawang to Salak Selatan, stretching over 160km of tracks.
KVDT 1 is finally completed now, after enduring the disruption caused by Covid-19.
Focus is now on the second phase (KVDT 2) of this complicated rehabilitation project that has led to massive dissatisfaction among Komuter users in the Klang Valley over the years.
KVDT 2 involves two lines of over 110km from Salak Selatan to Seremban, and from Kuala Lumpur Sentral to Port Klang.
Based on the experience seen with KVDT 1, KVDT 2 could take another eight years to be finished as work could only be done when trains are not running.
There is also no good news in the short term for those needing to reach Johor Baru in a hurry from the Klang Valley.
Driving, even during non-festive periods, can take six to seven hours.
Part of the solution lies in the ongoing Gemas-Johor Baru electrification and double tracking, which promises seamless travel all the way from Padang Besar to Johor Baru when it is ready.
However, examination of the worksite shows that KTMB will not be able to offer any ETS services in the first half of 2025 as critical electrification and systems work are still not in place, excluding the extensive testing mandated under the Railways Act 1991.
Further indication of the delay in this project is the fact that KTMB has not put up any ETS tickets for sale from Gemas to Johor Baru for Chinese New Year next month and Hari Raya for 2025, which is just three months away.
The lack of ETS trainsets is also expected to be addressed by next year when new ones arrive from China under a government-to-government deal.
Meanwhile, KTMB’s counterpart in the north, the State Railway of Thailand (SRT), will enhance the existing stretch from Hatyai to Padang Besar in Perlis, a 45km stretch that is non-electrified.
SRT has committed to spending up to 7.9 billion baht (RM1bil) to double track the stretch so that more trains can move from Thailand to Padang Besar, and vice versa.
Integrated fare payments between all the different public transit operators will also have to wait a while, as no nationwide solution is about to emerge anytime soon, even though the now-defunct Land Public Transport Commission did evaluate some models before it was disbanded following the 2018 general election.
According to Azharuddin, Prasarana is currently tasked by the government with coming up with the integrated solution that also covers open payment systems to enable efficient fare apportionment between multiple public transit operators in future.
“We have to show that it works well within the Prasarana network first,” he said during the interview.
As far as buses are concerned, it is all good news for the Klang Valley, as ridership is showing an uptrend since Prasarana worked with the Kuala Lumpur City Hall and police to introduce new bus lanes, along with enhanced bus services that make fewer stops called skip-stop buses.
However, Kuantan is showing a worrying trend, with declining ridership.
More persuasion is also needed for Penang folk as bus ridership is mostly flat this year.
A lot of thought has been put into adding bus riders and, in this, there is now increasing reliance on big data and artificial intelligence.
Prasarana is now working with UrbanMetry, a Malaysian company that specialises in aggregating and presenting raw data into meaningful forms.
“UrbanMetry has been working closely with Prasarana and Rapid Bus to build a data-driven network planning tool to increase bus ridership in the Klang Valley.
“Its role includes cleaning and streamlining Rapid Bus’ internal data sources, provisioning external data sources from UrbanMetry’s proprietary database and building a machine-learned model and Network Planning Tool to predict bus ridership,” said a UrbanMetry spokesman.
“Through the coupling of Rapid Bus’ ridership data and UrbanMetry’s Klang Valley movement, demographics and city data, and internal and external data, we were able to build a model to predict bus ridership with changes in the bus network, including modifications and the addition of new lines.
“This translates to significant cost savings for our bus operators, who can utilise the data to prioritise and optimise our bus resources.”
Using big data, Rapid Bus would be able to predict the ridership bump using the network planning tool built together by UrbanMetry and Rapid Bus.
“UrbanMetry is very excited about the big improvements that technological efficiencies will bring to public transport ridership going forward.
“Currently, the data shows that the bus network would significantly benefit from more buses, more routes, and higher frequency to increase ridership.
“We believe that a data-driven approach would expedite the execution of these plans for our city,” the company added.
Public transport ridership data can be gleaned from data.gov.my/dashboard/public-transportation and myrapid.com.my/bus-train/ridership/.
