Prasarana pledges regular disclosures on rail, bus services to improve transparency, reliability

KUALA LUMPUR (May 15): Prasarana Malaysia Bhd has pledged to provide regular disclosures on its rail and bus services to the public, in its bid to improve transparency and reliability in the delivery of public transport services.

Prasarana also launched an initiative to monitor and track the mean kilometre between failure (MKBF) for its rail services on a monthly basis.

Updates on ridership, load factor, service reliability, availability and station facilities of its rail and bus services will be shared on a weekly basis, it said in a press statement on Monday (May 15).

MKBF is an internationally recognised means to ascertain the reliability of services; the metric is being used by train operators around the world including Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan, according to Transport Minister Anthony Loke.

Loke said the MKBF report is part of Prasarana’s key performance indicators, with an aim to operate without failure or technical disruptions for the targeted distance.

MKBF measures the train’s average distance travelled before a failure or breakdown that causes delays of more than five minutes.

“This initiative will immediately improve the transparency of Prasarana’s operations. It will also improve its rail and bus services because areas for improvement will be identified and measures will be implemented to address them, in the company’s aim to meet its MKBF target of one million kilometres by the third quarter of 2026,” said Prasarana.

Prasarana president and chief executive officer Mohd Azharuddin Mat Sah said the group recognises the importance of transparency and reliability in building trust and confidence among its customers.

“By tracking MKBF, we can provide passengers with clear and concise information about the performance of the related services, including the frequency and duration of disruptions, and how they are being addressed,” he said.

“Our customers deserve the best possible service, and we are committed to delivering it to them. The MKBF initiative is just one example of how Prasarana is working to improve its services and deliver a world-class experience to customers,” he added.

Prasarana is aiming for one million km of MKBF for LRT Kelana Jaya Line, LRT Ampang Line and MRT Kajang Line, while targeting 150,000km of MKBF for Monorail by the third quarter of 2026.

As at March this year, the MRT Kajang Line has the highest MKBF among these four rail services, with 204,611km, followed by LRT Ampang Line’s 201,210km, LRT Kelana Jaya’s 134,636km and Monorail’s 77,837km.

Initiatives to improve services

Azharuddin said Prasarana will continuously monitor its service performance and identify areas for improvement and implement measures to address them, ultimately delivering a better experience for its customers.

Major initiatives planned and undertaken by Prasarana to improve its service reliability for rail services include the delivery of new four-car trains for Kelana Jaya Line in the third quarter of this year.

On the mid- to long-term horizon, Prasarana plans to overhaul 50 train sets progressively for LRT Ampang Line up to 2027 and carry out mid-life refurbishment for 34 trains on Kelana Jaya Line between 2024 and 2029.

“These will take place concurrently with various ongoing rectification and maintenance programmes for all its rail lines,” said Prasarana.

Meanwhile for its bus services, improvement initiatives that are planned include undertaking a bus fleet replacement programme to replace the current buses with smaller ones which would be able to serve inner parts of neighbourhoods as well as cater for various community usages.

Other measures include recruiting new bus captains to address the current shortage, and collaboration with DBKL and the Selangor state to enforce and to improve bus lanes to improve travel time.

Year-to-date, Prasarana’s rail arm Rapid Rail has recorded a total ridership of about 88 million passengers for its LRT, MRT and Monorail services.

Meanwhile, its bus operations under Rapid Bus recorded total ridership of about 24.3 million passengers for its Rapid KL, MRT Feeder, BRT Sunway, Rapid Penang and Rapid Kuantan services, during the same period.