Contents - SPAD

Poor image and unreliability of buses.
There is clear evidence that on key corridors services are operating at substantially below full
capacity even at peak hours. As a result largely of congestion levels and bus journey time
variability, it is unlikely that the “offer” available to passengers for peak hour bus journeys is
sufficiently attractive to affect a mode switch from private vehicles. In order to maintain
reasonable peak period capacity under present conditions it would be necessary for bus operators
to put additional buses into service during peak hours. These buses would be extremely costly to
provide but as a yardstick, a bus that is used for say four peak hours per day as opposed to say 18
hours per day of full service can attract costs that are between 60% and 70% of the 18 hours per
day cost.
Under the present, in effect, open market conditions for operating buses and given the difficult
operating conditions, it is not surprising that the overall bus network is far from comprehensive,
with large areas of GKL/KV and significant areas of the conurbation with little or no service.
Additionally the frequency on many routes is low and the daily operating spread (the number of
hours between first and last bus) is limited. There is evidence that especially at periods of lower
demand, the availability of buses is variable day to day. All of these factors are likely to reduce
demand for bus services and, inevitably, encourage more people to use private vehicles adding to
congestion and reducing overall mobility.
2.10) Interchanges and Bus Stations
NKRA (2009) identified the issue of terminal locations and interchange facilities for bus services
whether inter-city, inter-urban and city feeder services, resulted in an uncoordinated and
inefficient network with the routes of many services overlapping, overcrowding on services and bus
congestion in the Central Business District (CBD) area, for example in the area of the Central
Market. Further information is available in the Interchange and Integration Plan. Key issues
included:
Poor quality facilities in the main terminals for inter-urban and intra-urban services
Poorly designed traffic circulation for city central feeder routes which creates congestion
for all traffic and substantially add to bus operating costs
Buses park haphazardly due to the lack of parking bays and due to the poor levels of
control by operations supervisors
NKRA defined four types of interchange with proposals to enhance these (as shown in Table 2.5):
Integrated Transport Terminals (ITTs) – defined as intercity terminal points in KL
Inter-urban - defined as terminal points in KL for services up to 60km
Intra-urban - defined as terminal points in KL for services up to 30km
City feeder - defined as terminal points for services operating largely or solely within in the
CBD
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