Call for a national transport policy

Media statement by Liew Chin Tong in George Town on Sunday, 12^th June 2011:

Call for a national transport policy

Staggering numbers of registered vehicles shows that there is a dire need for total rethinking of Malaysia's penchant for private vehicles.

A National Transport Policy that prioritises public transport and discriminates against private vehicles must be put in place before our roads are choked. Resources for transportation available to governments of all levels - federal, state, and local authorities - must be channeled to the expansion of public transport services while the construction of roads in urban centres should be kept to the minimal.

The National Transport Policy needs a two-prong strategy of rapidly increasing the supply of public transport services and the suppression of demands for roads by private vehicles. Otherwise no road building exercise is sufficient to cater for the massive annual increase of registered vehicles. According to Transport Minister Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha, between 2009 and 2010 saw an increase of 11.74 percent of registered vehicles.

While the Federal Government managed to produce a National Automotive Policy, there is no such commitment to create a National Transport Policy. The last time such policy was mooted was in September 2001 by the then Deputy Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Badawi.

I asked the Transport Minister during the last parliament session for the full statistics of registered vehicle since 1957 (but not inclusive of vehicles registered before 1957) which he has replied recently. The following are some highlights which indicated clearly the dysfunctional situation of transportation Malaysia is stuck in.

Malaysia had less than 2 million vehicles in 1980 but our roads now have more than 20 million vehicles. Just five years before that in 2005, the figure was below 15 million and 10 years ago in 2000 it was just 10.5 million.

Tahun	Motosikal	Motokar	Bus	Teksi	Kereta Sewa	Kenderaan Barangan	Lain-lain Kenderaan	Jumlah	Jumlah keseluruhan
1960	3,619	3,598	113	2	2	421	420	8,175	16,919
1970	22,361	18,433	479	83	2	3120	2,345	46,823	283,129
1980	169,012	98,135	835	743	8	24,102	16,988	309,823	1,885,793
1990	197,507	124,719	2,171	201	20	32,856	63,431	420,905	4,833,971
2000	238,695	344,847	544	2,635	2,883	24,316	11,949	625,869	10,582,268
2005	422,255	537,900	1,568	5,002	3,411	33,532	16,440	1,020,108	14,702,006
2010	498,041	585,304	2,067	5,026	3,581	40,887	23,470	1,158,376	20,028,198
Jumlah	9,373,099	8,642,647	54,963	73,716	33,667	990,009	860,097	20,028,198

A paradigm shift is urgently needed to rethink our national priorities in transport. The principle must be along the line of "moving people, not cars!"

* Liew Chin Tong, DAP International Secretary & MP for Bukit Bendera