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RAPID RAIL SEEK PATIENCE, UNDERSTANDING FROM COMMUTERS ON MONORAIL SERVICES

KUALA LUMPUR, 7 June – Rapid Rail – operator of Rapid KL monorail service – is seeking patience and understanding from its customers in view of current challenges in services resulting from the grounding of its fleet of four-car train sets.

In making the appeal, Rapid Rail Chief Executive Officer, Dato’ Ir Zohari Sulaiman acknowledges the frustration and unhappiness of its customers as the monorail service is forced to continue operations only with its current six sets of two-car trains.

“Rapid Rail, especially the management and staff of Rapid KL Monorail Line, is working to our best possible capability in ensuring the best possible service under these current challenging circumstances. It is unfortunate that we have to ground all the four-car train sets at this juncture.

“On this note, we have no choice but to ground the four-car train sets on safety reasons; after having identified a few areas of safety risks posed by the four-car train sets that had been handed over to us by our supplier, Scomi.

“Rapid Rail briefed SPAD; being the authority on matters in regard to public transport. SPAD concurred with our findings. Hence, in the interest of passengers’ safety, we directed for the entire four-car train sets to be re-examined by the train supplier; and for Scomi to make the necessary rectifications,” Rapid Rail Chief Executive Officer, Dato’ Ir Zohari Sulaiman said in a media statement today.

With the grounding of the four-car train sets, Rapid KL Monorail Line, which runs between KL Sentral and Titiwangsa; and serving the heart of the city’s Central Business District, has been operating with only two-car train sets with a frequency of 8 minutes.

In reducing the congestion, the monorail service is supported by special shuttle services, provided by Rapid KL bus services, plying between key monorail stations during morning and evening peak hours on weekdays.

“If necessary, especially with the upcoming Hari Raya spending spree, we are ready to consider to extent this shuttle bus services to provide services during weekends as well. We fully understand that KL folks are used to enjoy the convenience provided by the monorail services and have always depended on its services for their daily travels.

“Hence, we fully understand the frustration expressed by the commuters in the main stream  media and in the social media. As the CEO of Rapid Rail, I also fully understand the stress and challenges faced by the working staff at the stations in managing the complaints. In these times of pressure and overloaded with enquiries, the staff, sometimes, provides the customers with single-liners explanations which may be misconstrued as reported in the newspapers recently. 

“On behalf of these staff, I would like to personally express our deepest apology if there are any  of our customers that felt that they were not fully entertained to their enquiries, which understandably have been higher than usual. The management will continually remind and advise the monorail staff especially those working as front-liners to perform their duties professionally in managing these new challenges. 

“The current challenges that they are currently facing are unprecedented as we had never  expected for the four-car trains to be grounded and providing services purely using six set of two-car trains. In fact, if we truly go back to our actual KL Monorail Fleet Expansion Project (KLMFEP), we should be having 12 new four-car trains already in service. But, until today, we are still waiting for six more four-car trains to be delivered to us,” added Zohari. 

Initiated under the Government’s National Key Results Area- Urban Public Transport, the KLMFEP  was targeted for completion by July 2013. It has, however, being seriously overdue and had adversely impacted the travelling public at large, as well as other stakeholders including the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Transport, SPAD, Prasarana and its subsidiaries. 

“I would like to take this opportunity to clarify that Rapid Rail – be it the LRT, MRT or monorail  services – will provide refund coupons to passengers who have entered the ticketing gates; but decided not to board the train and exit the station to take alternative transport in cases of train delays of more than 15 minutes. Passengers just need to go to the counter and approach our customer service officers. 

“Under current circumstances, I would personally recommend for KL commuters to consider  taking other alternative mode of public transport for their destination to KL Golden Triangle. You can take always use the special shuttle service; or the Go KL free buses, Rapid KL stage buses, our LRT networks, taxi or other public ride-hailing services. 

“We are working closely with our contractor on getting back the four-car trains sets back in  service. We sincerely hope it would happen very soon. But, so far, we do not have any specific dates,” added Zohari.

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