No enthusiasm for ECRL on the east coast?

 

It’s always nice to visit Terengganu and catch up with some old friends there. They’re forever hospitable, friendly, and chatty.

They always have many popular Terengganu dishes to share. Accepting their offerings means I would add a couple more kilos to my weight, but declining could be seen as impolite.

This time around, our conversations didn’t involve politics, as no one seemed interested. They must be too preoccupied with their own matters to dwell on that boring subject.

I noticed that almost everyone has new cars in their driveways. Has car ownership increased in Terengganu?

The town seems a lot more congested than before, and I was advised not to visit Terengganu during the school holidays.

This place will be packed. Too many outsiders,

 said a close friend who runs a couple of gold shops at Pasar Payang. This crowded market, lined with goldsmith shops, reflects how locals manage their savings in gold.

Thoughts on ECRL

On the way here, I noticed numerous construction sites visible from the roads. It turned out that these were ECRL alignments or stations under construction.

Curious, I wanted to know what the locals thought of the ECRL project. The responses I received were rather surprising.

This expensive project was conceived by BN when they ruled the state,

 clarified another friend. 

It has nothing to do with the current government.

Another friend lamented that the locals were not involved in the project.

‘Hardly any local workers are employed in it,” he said, adding that the ECRL is also unlikely to make any difference to the travel needs of the locals.

It’s not groundbreaking since its alignment runs parallel to existing highways and main roads on the East Coast, meaning the train will compete with existing road transport services,

 he said.

No one who owns a car would drive to the nearest station, park their car, and jump onto the train to get to Kuala Terengganu or Kota Bharu,

 said his wife.

She has a point. The MRT in KL didn’t manage to change the travel habits of most car owners. They don’t use the MRT’s 

park and ride

 concept. The main complaint among car owners centres on first- and last-mile issues affecting public transport usage.

From my own train travel experience, I know that an inherent problem with long-distance rail services, ECRL included, is the long intervals between train departures, which result in lengthy waiting times for passengers.

For comparison, the current KTM service frequency for KL-Ipoh and vice versa is a train every hour between 7-11am, two hours apart thereafter, with no services available after 4pm.

These are rail service schedules between two of the peninsula’s major cities – KL and Ipoh – with high population and travel demand.

The KL/Kuantan and Kuantan/Kuala Terengganu ECRL services will not be able to match the KL/Ipoh service level. The single-track ECRL will operate in areas where travel demand is much lower.

Therefore, it can be expected that train departures will be less frequent, further reducing inter-town travel demand.

It would be challenging for ECRL to capture the local segment of the travel market, i.e. inter-town travel within the East Coast states, as pointed out by the wife of my friend.

School holidays

What about during school holidays and festive seasons like ‘Hari Raya’, when the East Coast highway is choked with traffic? Surely the ECRL will come in handy, I suggested, playing the devil’s advocate.

Yes, of course. ECRL could play a role in easing highway congestion, provided it has sufficient train capacity to meet the sudden surge in demand,

 said another friend who brought us to a famous local nasi dagang chain of shops.

If you’re travelling from KL to Kuala Terengganu or Kota Bharu, yes, the train will be faster,

 he said.

At a maximum speed of 160 km/h, passengers could get to Kuantan in slightly under two hours, from KL to Kuala Terengganu in slightly over three hours, and from KL to Kota Bharu in under five hours.

If ECRL can maintain such a speed target and offer competitive fares, then I think more people would use the train.

As mentioned by my friend at Pasar Payang, a lot of domestic tourists flock to Terengganu during school holidays.

They could very well use the train services if the travel time is shorter and fares are cheaper.

At the moment, it takes an hour simply to manoeuvre out of KL to get to the beginning of the East Coast highway.

So, on paper, this new train service is quite promising, provided potential passengers know how to get to Gombak, the location of the new KL city ECRL terminus, which is connected only by LRT from KL Sentral.

For now, the ECRL is plagued with doubts and bad publicity. Its public relations machinery is not working well. A new approach may be needed to offer positive vibes and travel benefits against highway travel.

This is important to win over the negative attitudes of those in Terengganu and Kelantan, the two states under the opposition government, which ECRL has to serve. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.