Repair, discipline, and the return of reliability are evident as the system returns to form.

From Wan Agyl Wan Hassan
Masjid Jamek at 7.45am is its own kind of symphony. There’s the buzz of escalators rising, the rustle of commuter cards tapping past gates, and the anticipatory stillness of a platform crowd watching the light change from red to green.
For hundreds of thousands each morning, this is not just routine, it’s the invisible infrastructure holding up the rhythm of life in the Klang Valley.
But it wasn’t too long ago that this rhythm faltered. Between 2022 and 2023, public transport, particularly rail, has become a byword for unreliability.
Delays became common. Breakdowns went viral. Trust, already tenuous, was stretched thin. And while mega-projects and political pledges grabbed headlines, the reality on the ground told a different story of a system fraying at the edges.
Yet, behind the scenes, something began to shift. Not a flashy overhaul, but something more fundamental: repair, discipline, and the return of reliability.
The crisis that sparked a reset
The turning point came in November 2022, when the Kelana Jaya Line experienced a sudden, system-wide shut down. For five days, the city’s busiest line that moved over 200,000 passengers daily was offline.
Signal failures were the official cause, but for many in the industry, this was years in the making … neglected upgrades, asset fatigue, and an absence of systemic resilience had finally caught up.
What followed was a public reckoning. Ridership confidence plunged. News cycles were dominated by angry commuters and operational apologies. For the government, it wasn’t just a transport issue; it became a political one. And for Prasarana, it forced a brutal question: could it still be trusted to run the spine of Malaysia’s urban mobility?
From breakdown to recovery: the hard metrics
Recovery, when it came, didn’t arrive with ribbon-cuttings or prime-time announcements. It showed up in hard numbers – slowly, steadily, month after month.

Between 2022 and 2024, daily rail ridership rose by 84%. Service disruptions longer than five minutes fell by 40%. And, perhaps most crucially, train reliability measured in MKBF more than doubled, hitting 330,000km per fault in 2024.
These are not flashy statistics but they do matter. They signal a system returning to form. For Klang Valley commuters, this recovery is being felt in tangible ways: shorter wait times, fewer delays, and more confidence in planning daily travel. The ridership rebound shows that more people are returning to public transport, not just out of necessity, but because it’s working.
As reliability improves, some Malaysians are even choosing rail over cars, a shift that aligns with wider goals to reduce urban congestion and emissions.
Fixing the core before expanding
Under new leadership, Prasarana chose not to be seduced by expansion headlines. Instead, it turned inwards. The focus shifted to stabilising the foundation before building anything new.
Rolling stock rejuvenation became the anchor, new trains were procured for the Kelana Jaya Line, and older ones underwent mid-life refurbishments. But it wasn’t just hardware; it was systems. Predictive maintenance replaced reactive patchwork. KPIs were reshaped to prioritise service consistency and availability.
Customer experience didn’t go ignored either. Station visibility improved. The Pulse app, once derided for bugs, now received upgrades. Frontline staff presence at high-traffic stations was stepped up. And, slowly, predictability returned.
A fragile funding model
Yet even the best train can’t run without fuel and, in this case, that fuel is money.
Prasarana’s farebox recovery ratio remains unsustainably low, estimated at below 30%. Most of its operating costs are subsidised, and with fares frozen since 2015, operational costs rising, and inflation biting, the math doesn’t work.
Some steps are being taken to diversify revenue: property developments near stations, advertising, retail space monetisation. But without a long-term, ring-fenced funding model that somehow is similar to what Singapore or Hong Kong have pioneered, the system will remain vulnerable to political cycles and budget shortfalls.
Rebuilding trust, delay by delay
Perhaps the hardest battle wasn’t technical, it was emotional. After years of unreliability, the public didn’t just want trains to work. They wanted reasons to believe.
Prasarana’s answer has been a shift in tone and posture: faster, clearer communication during breakdowns; more detailed post-incident explanations; and human visibility at the frontlines.
Not everything has been solved. But the difference is noticeable. Riders don’t expect perfection; most of the time, they expect transparency. When they feel like the operator is in control and cares, trust begins to rebuild.
Leadership under fire: the calm amid the commute storm
Azharuddin Mat Sah didn’t walk into an easy job. Appointed in 2021, the former SPAD CEO inherited a storm of operational fragility and public fatigue. The Kelana Jaya shutdown, rising online criticism, and a perception of organisational drift all came under his watch and he became a lightning rod for blame.
Rightly so, in some cases. Prasarana’s communications lagged behind public expectations. Updates were slow. Crisis response felt delayed. For a while, the CEO himself appeared invisible and that hurt public confidence.
But where others might have turned defensive or resorted to spin, Azharuddin turned inward. He focused on systems. On asset management. On rebuilding trust through action, not airtime. The results now speak for themselves: double the train reliability, fewer service meltdowns, and ridership returning at scale.
His technocratic style doesn’t dazzle. Critics argue that his vision isn’t always visible, and public engagement could still improve. But what he’s delivered is stability and in public transport, that’s gold.
Leading Prasarana is a balancing act: juggling ministerial demands, budget constraints, and commuter expectations. He hasn’t been perfect. But he’s been steady and in the eyes of many, that’s what the moment demanded most.
What’s next: MRT3 and the big test
MRT3 is on the horizon. Branded as the final link in Klang Valley’s rail loop, it’s a project with enormous promise and enormous risk. If Prasarana has truly institutionalised reliability-first thinking, MRT3 could be transformative. But if old problems re-emerge with procurement inefficiencies, O&M delays, and fractured model integration, then public confidence may once again unravel.
A National Rail Masterplan, long discussed but still elusive, is now urgently needed. Without a long-term policy and funding framework, even the most efficient operator will be swimming against the tide.
Getting the basics right, finally
Urban rail systems aren’t judged by speeches, they’re judged by consistency. And in that sense, Prasarana’s quiet recovery is one of the most important public sector stories unfolding today. It’s far from complete. Financial fragility remains. Institutional coordination is still patchy. And public memory, as ever, is short.
For a government-backed operator like Prasarana, every ringgit spent must ultimately translate into more people choosing public transport. Ridership isn’t just a metric, it’s the truest return on investment. It reflects whether commuters trust the system, whether the service is accessible and reliable, and whether public funds are generating social and environmental returns.
Higher ridership means fewer cars on the road, lower emissions, reduced household transport costs, and stronger urban productivity. In short, ridership is where subsidy turns into impact.
After years of breakdowns and blame, the system is finally producing results, not just hope. And, for the first time in a long while, Malaysians are boarding the train with more confidence than complaint.
And that, perhaps, is the clearest sign that something is finally back on track. - FMT
Wan Agyl Wan Hassan is the founder and CEO of MY Mobility Vision, a transport think tank.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
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