We’re just a week away from Hari Raya Haji celebrations and a three-day break over the weekend.
You can be sure that there will be a terrible delay when driving from the Klang Valley to Kuala Terengganu and Kota Baru, Kelantan, where Hari Raya Haji is held to be of higher spiritual significance than Hari Raya Puasa.
Add to that, the domestic tourists from the Klang Valley who will be flocking to the East Coast for the inter-monsoon season of sunny blue skies, calm weather and gentle seas.
Just to be clear, the matter of traffic congestion is a state of mind. You can be annoyed and fret, or you can be stoic and accept the delay because you’ve anticipated it and have packed your car with snacks and drinks.
You would have noticed that people caught in traffic kept their calm two months ago, when the highways were chock-a-block filled with motorists from Klang Valley going home to celebrate Hari Raya Puasa.
During that period, motorists drove sedately in the stop-and-go jam, and the traffic police helped further to calm traffic by prominently stationing patrol cars and police bikes on the emergency lane to spot and issue summons to queue jumpers and embarrass them in the process.
The police are on a fresh path of being educators rather than hunters: It’s now observed that the police patrol cars drive with their blue beacons flashing to amplify their presence and deter would-be traffic offenders.
Previously, they would sulking around corners and without beacons on, just so they could be hunters rather than teachers.
For those of us holiday makers and Hari Raya Haji observers from Selangor going out of town on highways, we would like the police to continue their new approach as traffic calmers so that we can continue to make our kampong-bound journeys with minimum delay.
PLUS and the government should also improve their performance.
The Malaysia Highway Authority (MHA) should consider what the UK Department for Transport (DfT) does for England’s strategic road network.
It measures traffic delays and initiates measures to ensure that delays are minimised. While it’s understood that PLUS traffic is just a few per cent below pre-pandemic levels, neither it nor the MHA issue regular reports on traffic delays.
On the other hand, the DfT’s national highway authority issues national statistics and annual reports. For example, a report on travel time was published in March showing speeds on the network, average delays, and the Covid-19 effect on congestion.
In 2021, average delay was estimated to be 8.5 seconds per vehicle per mile compared to speed limits, a 16.4% increase on the previous year.
| Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
| Average speed (mph) | 58.0 | 60.0 | 58.9 |
| Average delay (spvpm) | 9.5 | 7.3 | 8.5 |
Efforts to facilitate a smooth traffic flow, including suspension of roadworks, also contribute towards less pollution from exhaust of cars and trucks moving at less than the optimum speed.
On its path towards decarbonisation, PLUS has signposted warnings to motorists to switch off their engines while parked at rest stops.
There’s also the suggestion that a multilane free flow system will reduce congestion at the major toll highways.
While it appears that the works ministry is the prime initiator of this project, it raises the question why the toll concessionaires don’t put this to the test with a pilot project at the Gombak toll plaza which is notorious for traffic delays of up to 45 minutes at festive periods.
Motorists, of course, will support any initiative that reduces travel delays if it doesn’t cost them anything. But ask them if they are willing to pay more for a multilane free flow, and I’m sure they will reconsider their response.
Finally, the alternative to road traffic congestion is of course to travel by bus and railway.
Express buses are popular and tickets are sold out in advance of festive seasons. Unless there’s a waiver on price control there’s not much more room for improvement: the transport ministry usually issues festive season permits for tour coaches and school buses to soak up the seasonal demand.
But what can significantly take many cars off the highways in Peninsular Malaysia is the railway.
Operated as it is now by KTM in Peninsular Malaysia, it’s an insignificant player in reducing traffic congestion because the schedules and frequency are unpopular.
The only major rail station on the east coast is at Kota Baru, Kelantan, and this service is only available from Gemas, Johor.
The East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) is scheduled for completion in December 2026 and for it to reduce highway congestion, it has to be run by a world-class management that delivers high frequency and punctuality.
I’m going to “balik kampung” to Terengganu for this Hari Raya Haji, and I’m already planning the fuel stops.
The Hari Raya Puasa traffic last May, marked the highest traffic peak ever on the ECE2 (East Coast Expressway) from Karak to Kuala Terengganu.
It was defined by the petrol stations running out of fuel, stranding many motorists.
My plan is to travel on Sunday, the first day of the holiday, to avoid most of the rush from Thursday to Saturday (July 7-9) and to achieve as little delay as possible over the normal four and a half hour trip, travelling at the legal speed limits over the 445km journey. - FMT
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
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