Rapid KL Bus Service Review

This morning, I took the much publicised Rapid KL shuttle bus service from Medan Pasar to KLCC. The brochure which I picked up has the following on the route brochure:-

1. Efficient comfortable and affordable.

2. All new buses !

3. and the ultimate marketing hype "Introducing KL's new commuting trend in the heart of city" .
   
   Does this new bus service live it to it's marketing hype and promises? Read on to find out.

5 minutes waiting time
The company promises 5 minutes waiting time betweeen buses to the same route. I was waiting at the bus station at 7.15 and and true enough , 5 minutes later bus 105 shows up. The only problem was I had to look hard for this buses. Herein lies a proble; the 5 minutes is indeed very good but with so many buses (about eight) parked, incoming and departing from an existing bus stop designed for 2 buses, there was severe congestion. I couldn't even see bus 105 coming and had walk in between several parked buses (dangerous !) and board it as it was parked on the middle lane of the road. There were two row of buses parked across the road and partially blocking the road.

Suggested improvement : Modify the bus stop to accoomodate more buses or divide the buses to 2 different bus stops along the same road. Modification of the bus stops would be difficult due to limited space.

Information
At this particular bus stop, there were two tables manned by several Rapid KL staff. Too bad - they were "busy" talking to each other rather than looking out of guiding the commuters obviously waiting for buses. On the tables, brochures showing the bus routes and information was available. The brochure was useful and informative.

What is mising are signboards showing basic and useful information such as bus routes and numbers. Signboards are absolutely critical to the success of bus system as a few months from now, there will no brochures left tp give and fewer or perhaps no personnel to man the tables (also it will be uneconomic to do so permanently).

Suggested improvement : Install robust signboards which are les susceptible to vandalism showing bus routes and bus numbers.

Bus condition and design
There are some basic flaws in the bus design. More to come.........