Kota Kinabalu City Bus Service
First and foremost congratulation to City Hall Kota Kinabalu for pushing on the much needed solution to city transport woes. In our effort at getting to the solution, we would definitely not able to satisfy all parties affected. But looking at it positively, City Hall in introducing the system has given much thoughts to it and must have visited a few cities studying the city traffic there. I am also sure that there will not be able to resolve the problems on their own. The other party that has as much a responsibility coming up with a perfect tango in ensuring the success of the plan is Lembaga Pelesenan Kenderaan Perdagangan (LPKP). To also have to play their part as they are the body that issue licences to commercial vehicles before conducting their trade.
LPKP is said to be slow in implementing their part of the bargain. The city bus system to be efficient and effective at the same time, must have enough buses to ply the 2 routes designated by City Hall. For now there are 13 buses or at the most 15 buses on the road serving the route. Because there are no other buses other than the city buses to drop and pick passengers within the Central Business District (CBD), to be efficient you must have enough buses to go round. How many is enough? This is where again the City Hall has to be lauded for their foresight to look at satisfaction of human needs and demands. They have set a very high standard comparable to the best in the world. The idea is to have bus passing through a point every 5 minutes. Isn’t this wonderful?
However with just 13 to 15 buses the current situation is that buses do come by at every 30 minutes. If you are not so lucky you might have to spend another half hour for the next one, if you missed the first one perhaps because they are already full of passengers. What will be the situation when its raining?
Is LPKP to be blamed for the extra permits that are required to fill in the shortage? At this stage we are not able to get a confirmation from LPKP as to whether they have issued the licences as the other party in the circle is the bus operator themselves. Have they applied for the permits or not? They have to answer for this. Reading at the situation on an armchair, I believed that there would not be a problem for LPKP to issue the licences. Is that too difficult to do to issue the many licences required? I am sure its only paper work. So why is it that there are no additional buses running on the road plying the routes. The ball looked like to be in the court of the bus operator. Why not?
For argument sake, if it is something which is considered prohibitive for one operator to undertake the economic activity, why not allow a second operator to come in? Since there are 2 routes, lets divide them to both of them. Looks a simple and logical solution to me. So unless the bus operator can give us a definitive reply, we can see no end to the public transport users grouses. Let us hope that this does not boil to a situation where the users take to the streets to demonstrate and vent their anger.
Hj Ramli Amir
Chairman
The Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport Malaysia, Sabah Section
28th June, 2009
