The members of the Association for the Improvement of Mass-Transit (Transit) have taken note of the comments by KTMB Chairperson Mohd Zin Mohamed on the problems with KTM’s service, especially in the Komuter division.

While we are happy to see that the chair of KTMB is aware of the many significant problems that KTMB has had to deal with, we feel that his explanation of the issues is a very hollow one.

The KTMB chairperson speaks of a problem within the maintenance culture at KTMB as one of the causes for the breakdown of commuter services. He mentioned a 'lack of action' on maintenance and a 'shortage of funds for maintenance'.

However, Transit notes that former KTMB managing director Salleh Abdullah went public in 2005 and 2006 expressing his worry about the effects that the corporatisation of KTMB would do to their maintenance standards. He worried that a corporate culture would lead to cost-cutting which would lead to a breakdown of maintenance.

It seems that this is really what has happened. What is the government planning to do about resolving the cost-cutting culture among the senior management that led to this breakdown in maintenance?

Transit also notes that the KTMB chairperson mentioned a problem with the metre gauge (1000mm width between rails) used by KTM and suggests that metre gauge is not popular around the world and not compliant with neighbouring railways.

Transit wishes to point out that all of Malaysia's neighbours use meter gauge railways with the exception of Indonesia, which uses the narrow (1067mm) gauge. We have metre gauge and we should live with it.

If the KTMB chairperson really believes that metre gauge is a problem, he should look into working with other rail operators in South East Asia to take advantage of economics of scale and make joint purchases of metre gauge trains.

The KTMB chair also mentions that KTMB should look at unlocking and selling their land assets. We at Transit can see people start to salivate at the prospects of all that land being available for sale.

But the suggestion of KTMB 'unlock' or sell assets to pay for operations is like asking a starving man to sell his house so he can buy better furniture. Instead, the Malaysian government should be giving KTMB the funding to provide the services that the public needs, and introducing the right investments to allow KTMB to profit from the use of the land area around the stations.

And Transit believes that is not appropriate to blame KTMB management or employees for the problems caused by lack of funding.

The writer represents Transit .