The passing of ‘100 Days’ of Najib Abdul Razak as prime minister of Malaysia were marked with glowing reports in all of the mainstream media.

In the celebration, Najib announced ‘11 Gifts’ for the people of Malaysia. But the users of public transport do not benefit from any of the ‘11 Gifts’ - despite the fact that “improvements to public transport” comes in among Najib's stated goals.

The government will ask toll operators to provide a 20% discount to drivers who pay toll more than 80 times per month (using Touch ‘n’ Go or SmartTag). The toll operators will be given compensation for the lost revenue.

At this point, it is not clear whether the 20% discount would be for the 80 tolls already paid or for the tolls above the threshold. In other words, if I pay toll 85 times do I get a 20% discount on all 85 tolls or just the five above 80?

What we do know is this: that the most regular users of lorries and buses and taxis (e.g. public transport) will not be able to benefit from the discount.

Many operators say that they do not use Touch ‘n’ Go or SmartTag as a matter of policy, so they can keep track of transactions by using paper receipts. Perhaps these companies are unaware that you can keep track of payments electronically or that Touch ‘n’ Go Sdn Bhd has two different types of fleet card (Fleet Xs and BizXs) available?

The main problem is that there are no facilities for using electronic payments on the heavy vehicle lanes at the toll plazas.

Which is too bad, really – because a company like RapidKL which operates along the Federal Highway, could save a lot of money and cut down on wasted time and wasted fuel if they only had a service like Transit’s proposed ‘BusTAG’ or the new Multi-Lane Free Flow system (which is to be tested starting next year – in theory).

With the former CEO of Plus Expressways now acting as managing director of Prasarana, one would think it would be easy to get a change like this implemented, but nothing seems to be coming anytime soon.

Transit also notes that the discount does not extend to Touch ‘n’ Go users on public transport (right now only RapidKL). Talk about a missed opportunity! Does the prime minister not know that RapidKL has been searching for ways to get more of its passengers to switch to Touch ‘n’ Go?

Staff at RapidKL have been asking me for feedback on this for many months, and I have told them the same thing - more people will not use Touch 'n' Go until they see themselves saving money. Saving time and stress (which Touch 'n' Go does bring) are not enough for many Malaysians.

Recently RapidKL has introduced a route (T529) where only Touch 'n' Go is accepted, but this trial will likely be unsuccessful. But if the government were to offer a 20% discount for people who use Touch 'n' Go on RapidKL bus and LRT and encourage more bus operators to accept Touch 'n' Go, the number of people using Touch 'n' Go would increase rapidly (no pun intended).

We note that more attention is being given to resolving the problems with the Commercial Vehicle Licensing Board (CVLB). Now that it has been put back into the hands of Nazri Abdul Aziz, and with the replacement of Markiman Kobiran as director, there is a great impetus for performance.

We also note that Federal Territories Minister Thamby Nong Chik seems to be making some efforts on resolving the problems with Puduraya, and there are certainly improvements anticipated there.

However, on the day-to-day we have yet to see any major changes. The Klang Valley Urban Transport Authority (Kuta) is nowhere to be seen, while the proposed Public Land Transport Commission is nowhere near the light of day. The government has let Prasarana focus on LRT extension to suburban areas like Putra Heights, but has stopped talking about the more important projects like the expansion of the KL Monorail or the new Kota Damansara-Cheras LRT line.

Despite all the heartwarming announcements, it seems that the government of Najib appears to be continuing with the holding pattern offered by his predecessor.