SHAH ALAM, Nov 9 — The Selangor government will deploy 20 Smart Selangor buses to ferry commuters affected by the temporary suspension of operations at 16 stations on the Kelana Jaya Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line.
Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari said the state will be coordinating with RapidKL to ensure the additional buses will be used efficiently.
“In order to help affected users commute to and from work due to operational disruptions and an insufficient number of buses, the government is in talks with RapidKL to use Smart Selangor buses from tomorrow.
“Ng Sze Han, as the state transportation exco, will represent Selangor in matters of coordination with RapidKL,” he told a press conference at the state secretariat building today.
Amiruddin added that the state was ready to deploy more buses if needed.
He also said that the 20 buses would not interrupt existing Smart Selangor services as they were being used as backups and to intervene if there are problems on their routes.
“If there are other needs, we can reorganise and rework the plan again,” he said, adding that approval would be sought from the Land Public Transport Commission (Spad) as it authorises bus routes.
The Pakatan Harapan candidate for the Gombak parliamentary seat added that the LRT crisis highlighted the importance of the state having a stake in transportation matters.
He said if the state had more power in current federal decisions on land transport, it would mean better public transportation planning, which in turn would encourage greater ridership.
“Perhaps I will propose this when I become the Gombak MP,” he said in jest.
This morning, public transport provider Rapid KL announced that it was temporarily suspending operations at 16 stations on the Kelana Jaya LRT Line for one week from today until November 15 (Tuesday).
An unspecified technical issue during rush hour yesterday evening left thousands of commuters stranded.
