KUALA LUMPUR: KTM Komuter users will now no longer complain about the prices of its daily and monthly passes. [TRANSIT: Oh yes, they can (and they will)]
Starting next month, KTM Bhd will reduce prices in a move to encourage more members of the public to use public transport. Next month[February], commuters can enjoy 50 per cent off their monthly passes.
The new passes offered by KTM Komuter. Image courtesy of Malay Mail.
After that, the monthly passes will be sold at 33 per cent less. February will also see commuters enjoying unlimited travel to all 27 KTM stations as the daily pass will retail at RM10 for adults and RM5 for children (age 4-12). From March, it will be RM12 and RM6 respectively.
The new and colourful KTM Komuter daily and monthly passes were launched this morning at KL Sentral by KTM Bhd president Dr Aminuddin Adnan.
“The reintroduction of the two passes is to replace KTM Bhd’s monthly and tourist passes which were introduced in 2007 in conjunction with the Visit Malaysia Year and the 50th Merdeka celebrations,” he said.
Dr Aminuddin said for the upcoming Thaipusam celebration, KTM Komuter will extend its services to cater for the larger crowd. There will be 208 special trains running between KL Sentral and Batu Caves daily from Jan 29 to 31.
Dr Aminuddin added KTM Bhd will be expanding its operations to include 38 more electrical multiple unit (EMU)trains to the present 26 by 2012. It is also in the midst of upgrading 15 EMUs.
“We have also reduced the waiting time at each station from 20 minutes to 15. We plan to further reduce the waiting time to 10 minutes,” said Dr Aminuddin.
The KTM Komuter station at KL Sentral caters to 94,000 passengers daily and is expected to be increased to 100,000 by year-end.
Dr Aminuddin also said KTM Bhd will choose 30 random lucky monthly pass users every month until June to reward them with special gifts. The promotion is meant to encourage the public to use monthly passes.
Members of the public may buy the monthly pass between the 26th of the month to the seventh of the following month to enjoy its benefits.
TRANSIT Says:
We are happy to see that KTM has reduced prices on the Komuter monthly pass and daily passes, even if the 50% discount on the monthly pass is only for 1 month.
Many KTM users will benefit from the monthly pass much more than the daily pass, since current services do not really provide the option of frequent travel in and around KL.
However, the opening of the Batu Caves extension (and possibly further extending this to Selayang) would be encouraging.
Currently, the people who will benefit from the daily pass are those who will make trips between towns that are far outside of KL – residents of Seremban & Kajang, Rawang & Tg. Malim, and Port Klang, for example, will benefit greatly from the the daily pass.
But what we really need to have is a fully-integrated Klang Valley day pass and weekly and monthly passes as well.
Ideally, this pass would provide unlimited bus+LRT+Monorail+KTM service at a reasonable price (RM10 daily or RM225 monthly with RM200 for those who make an advance purchase of 12 monthly passes), plus another pass that is “rail only”
There are so many options available and we hope to see better passes in the near future.
If the new SPAD also comes with a Klang Valley Public Transport Council (call it KUTA or Rapid4KL) then we can encourage public transport users by creating a single, integrated pass.
Transit Malaysia 