By Sherilyn Goh
KTM president Sarbini Tijan has attempted to justify the recent hikes in KTM Komuter fares by citing increased punctuality and safety. Tiger disagrees.
Tiger has officially lost count of how many times she has been writing about fare hikes. But being a frequent public transport user herself, she cannot help but to wince at the escalating cost of living, and she harbours great distaste in particular for poor justifications over these hikes, but clearly she is not alone.
Anyone who has taken the KTM Komuter, more so for those who travel back and forth on a daily basis, would know that waiting for your train to arrive is an eternal pain. Worse, they stop for long intervals between stations, and move at its operational speed of 120km per hour only for certain stretches.
The most recent round of fare hike, which came into force effective Dec 2, saw an increase from 11 sen to 15 sen per km, with commuters expected to fork out up to RM7.10 more for tickets depending on the intended destination.
As a result, we also saw public transport users taking it to social media, contrasting the prices of their tickets before and after the hike. It is hard for one to not find the quantum of increase shocking to say the least.
More amusingly, Tiger even came across a Twitter user saying he doesn’t mind paying RM10 per trip if the KTM is travelling at the speed of a bullet train. But such is sadly not the case. So for what reasons exactly are we paying for a 36% hike in fares?
Sarbini Tijan
In his attempt to justify the recent fare hike for the KTM Komuter Service, KTM Bhd’s president Sarbini Tijan seemed to have the answer to the riddle.
He was reported to have cited the increase in punctuality of KTM trains to 97% as justification for the fare hikes, with the president of the rail operator admitting that its Komuter service was previously only on schedule for 56% to 60% of the time.
“Now our punctuality is over 95% or 97% and at the same time, to date, we don’t have any major accident that led to deaths,” he was quoted as saying in an article by The Malay Mail Online.
Compounding the matter is a fact sheet by the rail operator which showed that only 17% of its Komuter trains were on time in 2011, but the figure had increased to 97% as of this October.
Tiger cannot help but to find such justification extremely absurd.
If we were to go by Sarbini’s logic that an increase in punctuality warrants a substantial fare hike, what would all those years of lack of punctuality call for?
Is KTM going to refund its riders for the many years of lost efficiency due to the excessively long waiting duration? And is KTM admitting that their trains are being deliberately delayed 34% to 40% of the time?
That being said, the waiting time currently clocks in between 15 minutes and 30 minutes, which is already considerably long even without any delay. How then will such long waiting intervals increase the attractiveness of the KTM Komuter trains?
In contrast, should the rail operator be able to significantly reduce waiting time without having to place unnecessary burden on commuters, it goes without saying that it will become a more attractive mode of transport with an anticipated surge in ridership.
As it is, the KTM Komuter is already the most profitable passenger service offered by KTM, with an estimated 47 million passengers per annum. Hence Tiger wonders where is the need for a substantial fare hike?
If it is in any way to compensate for the loss-making intercity routes, the fare hike is unfair for the everyday users of the KTM Komuter.
It is even more distasteful for Sarbini to justify a significant fare hike citing passengers safety, when safety of passengers should be an utmost priority for public transport operators, whether there is an increase in fares or not.
And if it’s true that KTM intends to encourage more to use their services, a fare hike only further serve as a pushing factor reducing its appeal as a mode of transport.
How would those who live in the suburbans travel to their workplaces in the heart of the city then? It looks like even if we were to heed a certain minister’s advice on waking up earlier in the dawn to avoid tolled roads, there would no two ways about avoiding drastic fare hikes. So how now?
GRRRRR!!!
You must be logged in to post a comment.