LRT station ‘policeman’ poser

TRANSIT noted this article in the Hotline section of the Malay Mail, asking a question about the Auxiliary Police (Polis Bantuan) present at some RapidKL LRT stations.

LRT station ‘policeman’ poser (Malay Mail)

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

DARREN of Setapak is wondering about the presence of a ‘policeman’ at the Wangsa Maju LRT station.

“I thought it was weird that the policeman was standing at the monthly pass entrance or exit just to check on passengers whether or not they have passes,” he say.

“I think the policeman should be patrolling the station instead.”

The response from RapidKL is below:

Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd general manager (group communications) Ebi Azly Abdullah says policemen at the LRT stations are, in fact, part of the their Auxiliary Police (AP) team.

“They are employed by RapidKL and are responsible for protecting the staff, passengers and company assets, ” he says.

“They are not only stationed at Wangsa Maju, but other busy stations, such as KL Sentral, Masjid Jamek and KLCC as well.”

Ebby Azly says RapidKL welcomes public feedback by contacting the Helpline: 03-78852585 from 7am to 8.30pm, Monday to Friday; and 8.30am to 5.30pm, on Saturday and Sunday; or via suggest@rapidkl.com.my.

TRANSIT Says:

The response from Ebi Azly is great to see – but if you look at the article itself, it appears that there is no answer to the real question (or ‘poser’) which is, why are the police stationed at the counter rather than walking around the station or at platform level.

Now, we at TRANSIT know what the reasons might be. The Auxiliary Police are there to maintain safety & security and this could include:

• preventing fare evasion at the fare gates;
• providing first response to injuries at the station or premises (assuming they are trained first responders);
• providing crowd control services at platform level (and in the concourse in case there is a service delay/shutdown);
• assisting passengers in need (OKU, elderly, etc.);
• keeping an eye on RapidKL employees & contractors.

For Darren of Setapak, TRANSIT has observed some Auxiliary Police at platform level in various stations including Kelana Jaya, Masjid Jamek & KLCC (among others). Perhaps you can contact Ebi Azly directly for information about the security procedures.