The ridership for the Kelana Jaya line of the Light Rapid Transit (LRT) service increased by 2.25 million in the first six months of this year following the introduction of the four-car train sets late

last year.

NONE Up to June this year, 29.18 million commuters had used the service compared with 26.92 million for the first six months of 2009.

The Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu)'s director of communications Alex Iskandar Liew said this was a 8.4 percent increase and attributed it to the introduction of 15 new four-car train sets.

He said the initiative to improve efficiency of urban public transportation (UPT) would encourage more urbanites to use the LRT service, adding that 26 sets of four-car trains for the Kelana Jaya line would be operational by the end of this year.

Improving UPT is one of the six National Key Result Areas (NKRA) driven by the Government Tranformation Plan, he told Bernama during a special briefing on the NKRA in Kuala Lumpur today.

Liew also said that there would be 38 sets of six-car trains for Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad’s Komuter train service with a 800-passenger capacity each that would be operational by November.

For the Bus Expressway Transit (BET) service, he said overall, its ridership had also increased by 38 percent in the second quarter of this year.

Currently, there are four BET routes between Pasar Seni and KL Sentral and  Kota Damansara, Sg Long, Subang Mewah and Sri Muda.

The BET service, which was introduced early this year, had significantly cut travelling time by up to 30 minutes by using the less utilised highways in the Klang Valley, Liew said.

At the same time, he said, work was also under way to refurbish 638 bus stops and building another 162 new bus stops in the Klang Valley, while Prasarana had also bought 400 buses in order to provide a more efficient service to the public.

Under the NKRA, the government aims to increase UPT ridership by 150 percent within three years.

- Bernama