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ERL regulars hardest hit as monthly card sees third hike
Published:  Dec 4, 2015 9:00 AM
Updated: 4:00 AM

Train operator Express Rail Link (ERL) may have stressed that its fare hike next year is the first in 14 years but the same cannot be said for regular commuters who are dependent on the monthly KLIA Transit TravelCard.

For commuters who rely on the monthly pass, this is the third hike that they are seeing since 2008.

"I am a monthly pass user since 2002. ERL had increased its fare from KL Sentral to KLIA from RM250 to RM300, then to RM350.

"It isn't enough for them and now they want to increase the price to RM420 from January 2016 onwards," an angry commuter said in an e-mail to Malaysiakini .

The commuter, who did not want to be named, accused ERL of lying by saying that this is its first fare hike in 14 years.

When contacted, ERL explained that its “first hike in 14 years” statement is in reference to the one-way fare but confirmed that the price of its TravelCard had seen two previous price revisions.

However, ERL marketing and sales management deputy vice-president, Sheila Shamsudin, said the price revisions of the TravelCard were actually a reduction of discounts.

"The normal one-way fares for KLIA Transit have remain unchanged from our first day of operation.

"The KLIA Transit season pass, called the TravelCard, offers a heavily-discounted promotional fare. In 2008 and 2012, revisions were made to lessen the discount levels, but the TravelCards were still discounted up to 83 percent," Sheila said.

Promotional fares with heavy discounts

She said that the new TravelCard rate beginning next year is still a discount of between 17 percent and 83 percent, with an average discount of 45 percent.

"Another way of analysing this is that while the single trip fares will be increased by 57 percent, the TravelCard fares will increase by only 16 percent to 20 percent," she said.

Sheila said ultimately, the KLIA Transit TravelCard fares are priced in a way that the fare per trip would always be lower than the normal one-way fare as they are considered promotional fares with heavy discounts.

"For example, the standard one-way fare for KL Sentral to KLIA is RM35. Today, an airport worker buying the monthly TravelCard for KL Sentral-KLIA (60 trips) pays RM350, which means the fare per trip is RM5.83 (83 percent discount from standard one-way RM35).

"With the fare revision, the card is RM420 and the trips are reduced to 44 trips to keep the increase to a minimum and still at 83 percent discount (a 60-trip card would have cost the worker RM500)," she added.

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