Komuter’s communication failure as upsetting as its power failure

TRANSIT is not happy with yesterday’s KTM Komuter power failure near Bank Negara. More upsetting is the fact that information relays from KTM Komuter following the incident have been very inadequate, slow, and sometimes, simply unavailable.

The public have had enough, and it is time for SPAD to take charge and demand action from KTMB – either KTMB takes steps to fix their Komuter service now (as opposed to telling the public to wait until 2012 when the new trains arrive), or they become the first Malaysian public transport operator to have their permits to operate their own rail service taken away from them and contracted out via open, competitive tender.

Don’t think that it cannot happen. The Railways Act makes it clear that operating a railway service is really at the Privilege of the Minister of Transport – assuming that the company can meet expectations & regulations.

Commuter services from Bank Negara disrupted (NST)

KUALA LUMPUR: Keretapi Tanah Melayu Bhd’s (KTMB) commuter train services for the Bank Negara route to Rawang and Batu Caves were temporarily stopped following snapped cables at KM383.9 near the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC), here today.

KTMB Corporate Communications senior officer Mohd Fazil Ismail said the services were disrupted since 6.35pm and that only several other routes were operational.

“Routes not affected are those from Kuala Lumpur to Port Klang and Kuala Lumpur to Seremban. We have provided two-way shuttle trains for passengers from Rawang to Kepong until repair works are finished,” he said when contacted by Bernama here today.

He said efforts to restore the cables were underway and expected to be completed soon.

“I believe we will finish repair works by midnight tonight and will begin operations tomorrow morning,” he said.

He added that KTMB apologised for any inconvenience caused by the incident. BERNAMA

TRANSIT Says:

Sometimes we hear people criticizing TRANSIT for being unprofessional in highlighting issues faced by commuters. But the reality is there are certain levels of expectation standards that transit service providers should be made accountable to.

The commuting public, KTMB’s customers and clients, expect KTMB to expedite investigation as to how to prevent such power failures and service disruptions from happening again and again and again.

We are not happy at the lack of communication between KTM Komuter’s management and the general commuters from the minute the service breakdown occurred till today’s morning peak hour period.

There has been no announcement over the incident over its web page’s news update section. The wall notice on its facebook site was posted 2 hours late, there were no prompt announcements at affected stations, unhelpful customer service, blurred ticket salespersons, and even up to this morning, people are still clueless as whether the service has been improved to where it was before the incident or not.

And not to mention, what happened to KTM Komuter’s Twitter Update service (which TRANSIT faithfully linked to our website, hoping that commuters could be informed) – will it ever come back?

Face it KTMB – we know you are undervalued by the government but you have lost all credibility with the public. Just look at the comments below!

Even if the incidents are beyond your control (and we are not saying anything either way), you are responsible for the way that you handle service disruptions.

We hate to say this, but it is high time that the regulator, SPAD, takes action on KTMB and gets them to raise their standards – or face the consequence of being the first public transport operators in the “SPAD Era” to have their service taken away from them and given to a competitor.