Loke said the Kelana Jaya LRT line, the busiest of the four, experienced 49 failures in 2022, including a lengthy disruption which lasted five days and affected 14 train stations.
“There were still disruptions in 2023, but they dropped to 36. That is an improvement of about 27%,” he said when presenting Prasarana’s 2023 performance report and its plan for 2024.
“For 2024, we are aiming to reduce it to not more than 28 times. Minimising disruptions is important. The lower, the better.”
Prasarana defines failures as technical disruptions lasting more than five minutes.
From 2022 to 2023, Loke said the Kajang MRT line saw a reduction from 46 to 38 failures while the Ampang MRT line dropped from 79 to 19 failures.
The targets for 2024 are 21 and nine failures for the MRT lines, respectively.
“The KL Monorail, which used to have disruptions every other week in 2022, only experienced seven disruptions in 2023 – an improvement of 91%,” Loke said.
According to the performance report, all four rail lines are expected to see an overall reduction of 35% in failures this year.
When asked about the greater reduction in failures on the Ampang MRT line compared to the likes of the Kelana Jaya LRT line, Prasarana CEO Azharuddin Mat Sah said the Ampang line had newer fleets, which made fixing and maintenance from a “spare part” perspective easier.
“The Kelana Jaya line is using the 818 train models that have been operating for 15 years, so it is more complex, and we’re doing what we call a mid-life refurbishment,” he said.
“It will take a bit more time, maybe two or three years (for Kelana Jaya line trains) to really come up to the standard of the Ampang MRT line.”
Loke added that 12 new trains are expected to be added to the Kelana Jaya LRT line service.
Bus lane enforcement
He also spoke of plans to ramp up enforcement and penalise those who misuse bus lanes, especially as Prasarana is collaborating with local governments to expand existing bus lanes in the Klang Valley.
Loke said they would look into a carrot-and-stick approach to ensure proper usage of bus lanes.
“My approach has always been the carrot and stick. If the carrot doesn’t entice them, we will use the stick,” he said.
According to the performance report, the average daily ridership for buses last year was 241,000. The target is to increase this to 285,000 this year.
Loke acknowledged that bus ridership had yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
“People don’t prefer to take buses because they will be stuck in traffic jams, so the frequency is unpredictable. We are addressing those issues,” he said.
“That’s why we are putting a lot of effort into introducing bus lanes. We have two bus lanes currently: Jalan Ampang and Jalan Genting Klang.”