The average daily ridership of the various public transports in the country has recorded a 12 per cent increase in total to 638,608 from January to August this year, compared to 570,021 throughout 2016.

The Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) in a statement, said this was a significant pick up after a nine per cent decline in ridership last year caused by an urban rail fare review exercise taken in 2015.

SPAD said the number however did not include Mass Rapid Transit Line 1 ridership, which recorded an average daily ridership of 101,024 as it was only launched this year.

The commission noted that the LRT Kelana Jaya Line led the growth this year with an increase of 26 per cent from 215,855 to 271,250, followed by the LRT Ampang Line with a 14 per cent increase from 161,779 to 184,931 and KLIA Transit with a 10 per cent increase from 17,719 to 19,420.

However, SPAD said several public transports suffered a dip in ridership this year due to upgrading works including the KTM Komuter services which saw a five per cent decrease from 108,023 last year to 103,074 following the Klang Valley Double Track rehabilitation project, that impacted the train's frequency.

"We expect ridership to stabilise and pick-up once the KVDT rehabilitation work which covers the upgrading of track and signaling systems is completed in 2019 to modernise the 42 kilometres KTM Komuter network," it said.

Other than that, the KL Monorail ridership also hit a downtrend with a reduction of 11 per cent due to the removal of the five four-car monorail train sets due to safety concerns which resulted in reduced frequency.

Despite all these, SPAD said their independant Customer Satisfaction Index survey indicated that 84 per cent of respondents were satisfied with the urban public transport last year, an increase of 10 per cent from the previous year.

"These findings shows that the government is on the right track in planning and implementation of initiatives under the National Land Public Transport Master Plan.

"The Greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley's record of delivering its recent public transport projects on-time is testament to the forward planning process now in place," it said.

SPAD said, the commission would soon launch the Journey Planner in quarter four this year and implement the integrated ticketing system by 2019 to further attract more ridership by making transit more seamless.

-- BERNAMA