Prasarana talks to NST about the My30 travel pass

By Nuradzimmah Daim and Ayisy Yusof - June 16, 2020 @ 9:01am

AS Malaysia embraces the new normal amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Prasarana Malaysia Bhd is optimistic about getting back on track while boosting economic activities in the Klang Valley with the launch of the My30 unlimited travel pass yesterday. Its group chief operating officer (operations), Muhammad Nizam Alias, on its recovery plan, as well as the latest initiative by the government under the Economic Recovery Plan (Penjana), which saw RM200 million allocated for the My30 public transport subsidy

Question: What are the benefits of My30 and its impact on the economy?

Answer: Before My30, we had rolled out the My100 plan, which could be used for unlimited travel daily for all services (under the group), as well as My50, which was for bus rides. As announced by the prime minister (Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin) on June 5, My30 can be used by commuters for Prasarana services covering light rail transit, mass rail transit, monorail and bus rides in the Klang Valley.

Even with My100, passengers enjoyed huge savings in their commute. Based on our data, some people saved up to RM2,000 per month. But on average, we can save RM100 and above by using the pass.

With the introduction of My30, the savings are even greater. The product is more appealing to those who had previously spent less than RM100 (for their daily commute).

What is more important is that the government wants to see the savings benefit people.

This injection is in the form of a direct subsidy, which means people would have more disposable income. This will allow them to spend on other things, like necessities and entertainment.

I see this programme as something positive, not only for us as the operator, but also for the public as it can boost economic activities, apart from drawing more people to use public transport.

Question: What does Prasarana hope to achieve with My30, apart from it being cost-effective? Do you have a projection of the take-up rate?

Answer: If we look at My100, we gathered almost 200,000 commuters who spent between RM80 and above on travel.

On average, there are about 115,000 active users every month. Although Prasarana ferries about one million passengers daily, it does not mean that we will get the same number of unique customers.

Maybe we'll get half of that as each passenger would travel at least twice a day.

The goal of My30 is to provide bigger savings for passengers and, at the same time, see more people use public transport.

The logic is simple. With My30, one would spend a small sum compared with a private vehicle, which comes with many costs, including petrol, toll, parking and monthly instalments, which could reach RM1,000 a month.

With My30, we spend only RM30 per month and can commute to work, go out for lunch and go out on weekends.

A commuter spends an average of RM4.80 daily. With My30, he spends RM1 per day.

With a concession card, a trip costs an average of 80 sen, but with the My30 pass, if a holder makes two trips daily, the cost for each is 50 sen only.

I am not able to give the exact number of My30 subscribers, but we are optimistic that more will benefit from this.

When more people use public transport, it will also benefit the economy as people can use the money saved from travelling and spend it on other things.

Using public transport also helps the environment, as our trains are more environmentally-friendly compared with private vehicles.

We are optimistic that we can attract new users.

On our side, we have to understand that the fare price is not the only factor for users to consider when taking public transport. This initiative is attractive for users and could be likened to the "sale of the century".

Question: Any plan to expand the travel pass to commuters outside the Klang Valley?

Answer: For the time being, My30 can be used by Prasarana customers only in the Klang Valley. While we welcome the idea, it is the government's prerogative.

Question: How do you foresee My30 in terms of boosting ridership for Prasarana?

Answer: We expect the number of passengers to increase beginning today (Monday), given that we have entered the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) period and more people have returned to work.

It will take some time to recover our average 750,000 rail ridership and 250,000 for bus services. I hope we can get 300,000 daily ridership for rail and 200,000 for bus services by this week.

However, we are aware that other factors must be taken into consideration. The economy is not doing as well as before due to the pandemic.

Also, some companies are continuing the work-from-home policy, which affects public transport.

Nevertheless, we will support the government's initiatives and implement them to ease the people's burden.

Question: What is the mechanism for the RM200 million subsidy under the Economic Recovery Plan (Penjana)?

Answer: We are finalising the mechanism, but it is capped at 200,000 users per month. It depends on how much we sell.

Let's say we sell 200,000 My30 passes. The government would pay a certain amount to us. It is not a subsidy per se as we had previously sold the My100 plan.

We normally sell the unlimited travel pass at RM100 each, but now we are selling it for RM30 each, so the difference in amount would be borne by the government.

We have to work harder as our goal is to provide savings to more people and achieve the targeted 200,000 users. The My30 initiative covers a six-month timeframe, which is a critical period in restoring the economy.

What if we get more than 200,000 subscribers per month? We are discussing the matter in detail with the Transport and Finance ministries.

For now, we are focusing on the savings for customers. The other matters, we leave it to the government to decide.

Question: The Covid-19 pandemic has adversely impacted many sectors. How has it impacted Prasarana's operations and public transport?

Answer: The My30 initiative is a proactive measure as we know that many businesses were affected due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This has indirectly and directly affected revenue, especially those in the Klang Valley, which is the country's economic capital.

Thus, we have to ensure that it continues to thrive. One of the initiatives to achieve this is the My30 incentive.

We are fortunate that we were allowed to operate during the Movement Control Order albeit with a reduced capacity. We can manage despite the lower ridership.

The same can't be said for businesses in other sectors, like hospitality, which saw the closure of some hotels.

Question: What are your strategies to improve the ridership and your services?

Answer: Apart from the government initiatives, we are also working on our post-pandemic recovery plan.

We are looking at improving our service quality as people's decision whether to choose public transport or private vehicles depends on several factors.

For Prasarana, we can look at factors that are within our control, one of which is service quality.

This year, we are focusing on improving this by emphasising on the punctuality of trains, cleanliness and how we interact with customers to provide better services to them.

When we implemented benchmarking last year, we were in a good position among global public transport operators.

We are always looking at addressing our weaknesses, one of which is customer service. However, we were quite impacted by the MCO, so we were unable to implement our plan for new training in the past two or three months.

We will get back to it now that there are relaxations on restrictions in the RMCO period.

Question: The current environment has evolved drastically due to the Covid-19 pandemic. How will this affect Prasarana's urban planning strategy for transportation?

Answer: We are looking at how we can be more efficient and recover some of the ticket revenue (rail services) that we could have lost without the My30 programme.

This year's revenue could have been higher, but due to Covid-19, we expect it will be lower than than last year's.

For bus services, the cost structure is different than rail as we have a lot more fixed costs, such as drivers. We also have many variables and the ticket price is controlled.

We are waiting for the government's decision to roll out electric buses as it was announced in October in the 2020 Budget.

Since then, we have not been updated on whether the RM450 million budget will be allocated for 500 electric buses. But not all (of the sum) will be allocated to us.

Question: What does the new normal entail in terms of Prasarana's operations?

Answer: The new normal covers our passengers and staff. We carry out temperature screenings at all stations, with passengers required to scan the QR code for the MySejahtera app (developed to manage the Covid-19 outbreak) at the entrance.

We require the use of face masks for all passengers and staff to reduce the risk of infection. So while we are allowed to operate at full capacity, we take mitigating measures.

Passengers have adhered to this by practising social distancing on trains.