MCMC: PAKEJ to focus on the use of three-wheeler vehicle to increase efficiency of courier services

KUALA LUMPUR: The National Courier Accelerator Plan (PAKEJ) initiated by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) will focus on adopting the three-wheeler vehicle as one of the main transportation method in order to increase the efficiency and quality of services of courier.

Chairman Dr Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek said a three-wheeler vehicle has the ability to transport three times the capacity of parcel for delivery compared to a motorcycle and half the number of parcels transported by a normal van.

"In terms of cost, a three-wheeler vehicle would be somewhere in between the cost to operate a motorcycle and a van and have the ability to transport more parcels per route than a motorcycle especially to the rural areas," he said in a special interview on PAKEJ recently.

According to Fadhlullah, many countries have adopted the same method by using an electric three-wheeler vehicle such as in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, New Zealand and Singapore.

"The challenge is now to get an approval from the Ministry of Transport and the Road Transport Department to ensure the safety of the courier services and road users are guaranteed.

"Discussions have been initiated and are ongoing and we hope it would not take too long for the authorities to approve the use of three-wheeler as a mode of transport for courier services," he added.

PAKEJ, a five-year roadmap launched in June 2021 is set to enhance the quality of courier services (QoS) and seamless coverage to support the e-commerce industry's growth to double the parcels per capita to 30 by 2025.

PAKEJ comes with eight initiatives within two pillars, which is firstly to help drive the industry's sustainability and secondly to provide QoS and coverage-backed growth for the consumer.

"PAKEJ is one way to help small courier companies to compete in a better environment, to have the ability to grow at a lower cost as well as maintaining the pricing of the services," said Fadhlullah.

He said the MCMC would table the PAKEJ report on a quarterly basis with the first quarter report scheduled to be out for the public to review by next month.

"The report will include all the updates on the eight initiatives that we set in PAKEJ and we hope to get as much support and feedback from consumers and also the industry players that make the ecosystem works," he said.

Meanwhile, Fadhlullah said in this year to date, MCMC have received more than 13,000 complaints from consumers regarding the courier services and 86 per cent of them are about the poor services being delivered by the courier providers.

"As a comparison, throughout 2020, we received 13,000 complaints about the courier services, but for this year, as of August and closing to only the third quarter of the year, we received the same number of complaints as last year.

"That is the reason why PAKEJ is in place so we could work together with the industry to improve the service and hope to see the impact from next year onwards," said Fadhlullah.

-- BERNAMA