PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s economic development has been hampered by having numerous ministries and agencies involved in transport planning, says a transport expert.
Transport consultant Rosli Azad Khan said three ministries – transport, finance, and works – all play various roles in deciding on transport infrastructure, facilities, services and policies.
As a result, public transport services and transport system planning have become fragmented.
He said while Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan are managed under the federal territories ministry, all other city and municipal councils are under the local government and housing ministry.
“This kind of structure and set-up is complex and complicated. There is also a low level of efficiency which, in the past, has resulted in self-inflicted problems.
“The set-up is not effective for long-term planning purposes nor does it help economic development,” said Rosli, who has more than 30 years’ experience in the industry.
He said policies to limit vehicle ownership or car use would not be in the interest of the transport ministry as the road transport department’s (JPJ) main revenue is from road tax, new vehicle registrations, and driving licences.
According to Rosli, the privatisation of all ports in the country meant that port authorities, which come under the ministry, had become redundant, except for the minimal role of collecting port statistics and annual port leasing fees from the port operators.
Similarly, the Malaysia Aviation Commission (Mavcom) plays a “very limited role” in airport planning and operations as almost all the airports are under Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) which comes under the finance ministry.
The finance ministry also owns Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad, MRT Corp, MyHSR (High Speed Rail) and Malaysia Rail Link (MRL), which is now building the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL).
It also owns Prasarana, which runs the LRT, Monorail and RapidKL bus services.
Highways, meanwhile, are under the works ministry, which takes charge of the Highway Planning Unit and the Malaysia Highway Authority (MHA).
Rosli said political interference in transport planning and operation has proved to be a “major setback” in cases such as the Klang Valley Double Tracking Phase 2 (KVDT2) project, which involves the rehabilitation of 265km of railway tracks from Salak South in Kuala Lumpur to Seremban, and from Simpang Port Klang near MidValley in Kuala Lumpur to Port Klang.
The project was cancelled by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government, then reinstated, then cancelled again by the Perikatan Nasional-led government, leading to a suit by the contractor, Dhaya Maju-LTAT.
He said the failure to rehabilitate the railway tracks had driven away passengers to road transport, with the prolonged unrepaired lines resulting in a decline in KTM passenger ridership from 134,000 daily in 2015 to less than 20,000 a day in 2022.
“Without proper studies, planning considerations, assessment and comprehensive evaluation of travel demand and on how to provide the supply capacity side, the government, it seems, has made poor and rushed ad hoc decisions,” he said.
“Unless (certain) entities are restructured and run entirely by professionals, without any interference by politicians, I can’t see how we could progress to the next level or the desired optimal level of services.” - FMT
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