ON DEMAND BUSES: CHANGING THE WAY WE TRAVEL

By Michelle Ng

In 2018, a traffic management plan was conducted on the junction in front of Summit. It was the most challenging period of my service – rerouting will definitely be met with hiccups and therefore tempers. Here, we were looking at a road that had a capacity of 4000pcu/hr, but by the time the traffic management plan was conducted – already at a capacity of about 8000 pcu/hr. That means managing thousands of cars over a very tense period.

But what that got me thinking about is long term planning. See, roads are finite. Any city only has that much space. Therefore widening and building roads act really only as a stop gap measure. Any engineer will tell you that every road has a fixed lifespan if nothing is done to improve public transport and vehicle ownership.

With that advice, I began my journey of trying to improve public transport – starting with Subang Jaya.

My first attempt was with Prasarana. The proposal was to introduce a new intra-city line within Subang Jaya that would fill in gaps in their current routes. The plan was to conduct a trial for 3 months and reassess.

The trial failed. Aside from Covid, the system presented too many problems – unreliable arrival times, stops located too far away from residential areas, lack of awareness, which then led to low ridership and an unsustainable line.

It was also difficult to convince Prasarana to extend the trial as Covid plus the 50% ridership policy then meant that Prasarana had to adjust routes and redeploy assets.

This led us to speak to Causeway Link, having found out that they rolled out an on demand bus service called Kumpool, and was conducting a trial in Johor.

Having weathered the turbulence of Covid and with things on surer footing, Kumpool has finally launched in Subang Jaya!

And all of you should give it a try!

Just download the Kumpool app and start booking. Being an on demand bus service means that it combines both an on demand car service and a bus line – the route is fixed, but with a whopping 200 stops, and you have the luxury of booking when you would like to be picked up. Being a bus system, it also means that you will be paying very affordable rates – RM1, to be exact.

An advance booking system also means that Kumpool can predict and allocate resources better by avoiding reducing wasted trips.

This is the first of its kind in Selangor, and we want to see this succeed. So please do give them your support and book a trip today!

In ending this piece, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all readers a Happy Chinese New Year! May this year be a blessed one for each of you!