Klang Valley public transport operator RapidKL has announced that they will be making changes to 45 bus routes as of 16 November 2009.
According to a statement from RapidKL, these routes will go directly to the ‘City Centre’ reducing the need to change buses in the city centre.
This is expected to reduce the amount of money that occasional riders and those who have not purchased the monthly rapidpass would have to pay for their fares.
UPDATE: Detailed information about the adjustments, new routes, and discontinued services can now be seen here on RapidKL’s website
Click here to see a copy of the official statement. Click here to see a list of the affected routes.
45 RapidKL bus routes to go straight into city centre (RapidKL)
Petaling Jaya, 12 November 2009
Beginning 16 November 2009, RapidKL buses will go straight into the city centre, with the new re-alignment exercise involving 45 RapidKL bus routes.
The exercise involves 32 bus route extensions into the city centre, 11 re-aligned routes and two new routes being introduced.
Rangkaian Pengangkutan Integrasi Deras Sdn Bhd (RapidKL), the largest public transport operator in the Klang Valley, announced this during a Press Conference held at its office today.
RapidKL operates in 165 routes covering 980 housing estates daily. Since the introduction of the Zonal Fare System last September, bus passengers wanting to go into the City Centre will need [have needed] to change buses, and pay more. With the 45 newly re-aligned routes, these customers need not change buses, thus no additional fares.
The new re-alignment exercise beginning 16 November will increase the current 184 buses operating in the 45 affected routes to 341 buses.
Dato’ Mohamed Hazlan Mohamed Hussain, RapidKL’s Chief Operating Officer (Bus), said the re-alignments would make it easier for the customers as most of the routes would take the customers straight into the City Centre without having to change buses.
“The additional number of buses means better services, higher bus frequencies, shorter waiting period and more value for their money. This exercise will provide our customers with a more efficient service, in line with our efforts to ensure a better customer experience for our customers,” he added.
“For further information, customers can call our Helpline: 03-78852585 which operates from 7.00 am to 8.30 pm (Mon-Fri), 8.30 am to 5.30 pm (Sat-Sun) or surf our website http://www.rapidkl.com.my or provide feedback to suggest@rapidkl.com.my
TRANSIT Says:
We are waiting on more details about which routes will be affected by this change on 16 November. But in the meantime, we wonder why RapidKL was not able to sustain the “Hub and Spoke” system that they introduced in 2006.
We would like to know were RapidKL will get the additional buses from, where the buses will go to in the “City Centre” and of course, how this will affect the Bas Bandar (City Shuttle) and Bas Tempatan (Local Shuttle) services.
In addition, we are concerned to note that RapidKL is only giving the public 4 days to adjust to the changes that they are making. No opportunity has been given for the public to provide feedback on the changes.
This approach taken by RapidKL to reduce the number of transfers appears on the surface to be in the customer’s interest, but the constant change of routes and the lack of public feedback or consultation suggests something else entirely.
When we have more information we will share it with you immediately.
Transit Malaysia 
12 replies on “Changes to 45 RapidKL bus routes (updated with link to RapidKL article)”
The suspension of B101 greatly affects poor folks who need to travel to GH for monthly checkup n treatment etc… Usually senior citizens who have the 50% discount on RapidKL. Instead of having one straight bus to GH from KL Sentral/Brickfields – patients have to take 2 buses.
Rest assured, i will only take Metro buses from now on.
Thanks for your comment. We will forward it to RapidKL
Regards, Moaz for TRANSIT
The last check on Rapid KL’s website shows that the
“Bandar” routes will be eliminated.
My guess is that this move is probably to allow RapidKL to better compete with the likes of MetroBus. At the moment, I know many commuters who prefer to take the MetroBus because they go straight into town and saves them time and money.
Whilst I think this move will certainly benefit many commuters as it saves them the hassle of changing busses multiple times, I can see potential problems with delays due to traffic. Along with additional busses (which RapidKL has not stated that they’re purchasing), strict enforcement of the city’s bus lanes is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that the delays are minimised. Additionally, drivers MUST be forced to stick to schedule and not take extended breaks as they currently do on some of the local routes – esp. on the T225.
It would be nice if RapidKL could post a route map or a detail of the routes these busses will be taking to reach their final destinaton in town. When it says “Lebuh Ampang”, where exactly do they envision the stop to be? Would it be right where the current Len Seng busses stop near the Standard Chartered Bank or would it be closer to Masjid Jamek? Exact details of the stops and routes along with the schedule will be very helpful for all commuters.
Thanks for your comments.
We will share them with RapidKL directly.
Regarding the purchase of buses, RapidKL will purchase 400 chassis for buses which will be built by Malaysian coach builders. Some of these buses will replace the Chinese buses that have already started to fall apart.
Regards, Moaz for TRANSIT
Oh in addition, I do think that RapidkL should maintain the existing Bandar routes as they are an important link between the “hubs” surrounding the city. Giving commuters more options is always a good thing.
With the additional busses that they’re purchasing (thanks for that info Moaz), they should certainly be able to dedicate more busses to cover the city.
At the risk of spamming this post with multiple comments, RapidKL should consider re-organising their hubs for the “Tempatan” routes and integrate them with LRT and/or KTM Komuter stations as opposed to having odd hubs like the ones at the Old Warta in Selayang, Greenwood, Sg Mas or the ones in Puchong and Old Klang Road that only allow for interchanges with other trunk routes instead of providing rail connectivity.
We at TRANSIT think that the hubs would be more effective if there were a rapid transit connection.
Unfortunately, the Government and Prasarana seem to think that LRT is the only form of rapid transit worth investing in.
Regards, Moaz for TRANSIT
Today is 17th November and RapidKL website yet to update the new route for its RapidKL buses. This is unacceptable. They should provide these information before they change the route which is yesterday.
Also, I agree with some other poster that RapidKL should show their bus route using a map, preferably Google maps. How hard it is to chart the route to Google Maps?
On the matter of sticking to schedule/be on time. I suggest that RapidKL streamline all its network so that all have the correct/exact time to the minutes. I don’t think this is hard to achieve. Also, make sure that the bus take off at the specified time, not one minute early or more. It’s frustrating to wait for the bus that does not arrive at the expected time and sometimes I had to take taxi only to find the bus arrive few minutes later.
I’ve voiced some of my concern/suggestions to RapidKL but I doubt I’ll see anything come out of it.
Rapid KL has posted the list of routes that have been ammended but only in the “announcement” section. The AREA list still has the old information, which of course is unacceptable.
I’ve heard from a regular commuter that the information is sparce, even on board the busses, but this was as of yesterday…. Not sure if anything’s changed today.
Rapid Penang has a Facebook Fan Page and they post updates quite frequently there. I know RapidKL has a Twitter page but I’m not sure how good they are at updating the information.
Amazingly enough, the current mess with public transport in the Klang Valley is enough to make some people long for the days of the Mini Bus!!… and those were nightmarish days!
Noel, I’m aware of the ‘announcement’. However, it only show the start destination and final destination. Just by looking at the website, commuters have no idea which road it will go to get to the destination.
I do tweet to RapidKL to complain from time to time. But considering the limited words that I can use, sometimes there’s bound to be miscommunication and they failed to understand what I’m trying to convey to them.
Anyways, I’ve been ranting for quite a while now from earlier post.
Khairul,
That was what I meant but I guess I didnt’ convey that message clearly. Sorry. I do agree that this whole system is a complete mess.
I used to be a public transport user about 7 or 8 years ago when I last lived in Malaysia. However, since moving back about a little over a year ago, I’ve succumbed to driving since neither my office nor home are adequately served by any form of public transport, save for taxis.
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