The lack of buses in Malaysia, coupled with inefficient services is a stumbling block for most Malaysians to make the switch from private to public transport. As SPAD (Land Public Transport Commission) has been focused on the rail development in the Klang Valley, there are still many unanswered questions pertaining to improvement of buses routes, especially feeder bus services to the rail services.
The current figures of approximately 1500 buses serving the Klang Valley is a far cry of the 3200 buses serving a smaller, less populated Singapore, and the 7500 buses serving a similar sized City of London.
It is no wonder that it is almost impossible for SPAD to create efficient feeder bus services to all of the existing rail stations, including the LRT and KTM Komuter lines, and especially so for the new MRT stations that are under construction today.
Buses cost a fraction of these MRT lines under construction. Just RM1billion can put an additional 2000 buses on the road, that would make the upcoming MRT far more accessible to areas beyond the walking distance of each station.
It would be essential that SPAD embarks on an aggressive move to increase the number of buses on our streets if it takes its mission to improve public transport seriously.