GEORGE TOWN – Penang’s sole public bus service provider Rapid Bus Sdn Bhd will unveil a service similar to the Grab ride-sharing concept early next year as part of its efforts to encourage the use of public transport here.
This is also part of the government-linked company’s role to curb congestion, which is seen as worsening, especially during peak periods.
Rapid Bus chief executive officer Muhammad Yazurin Sallij Muhammad Yasin told journalists during the Rapid Penang media engagement session here that the new service will be called the demand response transit (DRT).
Rapid Bus oversees the bus services provided by Rapid Penang here, which has a fleet of 350 buses to serve both routes on the island and mainland.
DRT is now employed by Rapid Bus in Kuala Lumpur, namely in the locality of Alam Megah where up to 30 passengers are subscribing to it on a daily basis.
Over here, Rapid Penang plans to launch the DRT service on a trial period and it will soon name the locality involved.
It works similarly to Grab, but instead of individual rides, it is a pooled ride, using a specialised van with the capacity of taking up to 12 passengers per trip.
The passengers must wait along the route which the van will ply, mostly to high-demand localities and the waiting time is not more than five minutes, while the destinations can vary based on the demand factor, Yazurin explained.
The ride is booked online through a digital app, while the service will direct the passenger where to wait, which is within walking distance of where the booking is made.
DRT is a form of shared private or quasi-public transport for group travelling where vehicles alter their routes each journey based on particular transport demands without using a fixed route or scheduled journeys.
These vehicles typically pick and drop-off passengers in locations according to passengers needs and can include taxis, buses or other vehicles.
Passengers can typically use the service with a mobile phone app, and they will pay the driver via a ticketing system with reasonable fares.
In another development, Yazurin said that Rapid Bus is now offering an open tender to procure new buses, which generally tend to have a smaller capacity than the present ones in the Klang Valley and Penang.
Out of the 350 new buses, 70 will be allocated to Penang, said Yazurin.
Unlike the present ones, which can fill up to 60 passengers, the new ones, which are diesel-powered, will have half the capacity, he added.
Yazurin also noted that there is a slight increase in passenger demand following the Covid-19 lockdowns, which are partly due to the Penang government’s move to introduce free rides via its Mutiara Pass benefits to commuters here.
He added that Rapid Bus is lobbying both Kuala Lumpur City Hall and the city councils in Penang to provide dedicated bus lanes to expedite public transport here.
“We noticed we are unable to improve our services because our vehicles are also bogged down with the rising congestion. The best way forward is to establish dedicated bus lanes on major roads here,” said Yazurin. – The Vibes, October 31, 2023
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