Friday, September 29, 2006

KL Boleh - even more thoughts

These are more photos from Lex that I have either forgotten to include in the previous posts in this series.

Essentially, this whole KL Boleh series is all about pointing out our mindsets and attitudes. No matter how much the government and the transport operators spend to improve our roads and public transport, KL roads will still be shit if we don't give ourselves mental upgrades.

Destination boards
Take a look at these buses. These photos were taken this Monday by Lex. Tell me, what's so unusual about these buses?

Okay, they are the buses from the old stock. And I think they are waiting to be reconditioned.


Do you know where I'm going?

Well, it's the bus destination board that puzzles me. I know that Local routes are labelled green and I know that this is only a temporary solution. But that doesn't mean that you should have the whole board in that green, and in that light shade, and having the text white!

How are passengers supposed to spot the buses from afar?



Mind you, this problem isn't unique with these buses. Even those new ones with LED displays, can be quite hard to read. Especially those on the City Shuttle routes. The text and bus number is small. How about increasing the size of the text?



How about considering linen roller destination blinds in the future. Why linen roller blinds? These roller blinds can be easily changed midway through the route. So as the bus completes it route, only destinations that matter are displayed. Pretty low-tech but pretty neat eh? (although I don't expect Rapid KL to waste their money changing the LED displays anymore! Just try to fine tune the text size and the wording of the routes!)

And making sure the colour scheme works such that route information can be seen from afar, and at night.

Parking at the station - again


Need I say more? Causing taxis to use bus stops. Causing taxis to line up along the road, causing bottlenecks. Abuse of disabled persons parking. Lost revenue. Sigh!




I think these people are really orang kurang upaya. Orang kurang upaya berfikir. (sorry, not very PC)



And what patriots too!

If the lots are for Rapid KL staff, my understanding of Rapid KL staff being those doing maintenance or stuff like that. If they are just doing ticketing, please park behind at RM3 per day (I think).



There is NO LAW.

May I also add that these parking bays could be better utilized as a rank for waiting vehicles or to drop off passengers? I've passed Bangsar Road a couple of times in the late morning and I have noticed that waiting taxis occupy the bus stop and line up about 50 metres back to Maybank, causing Bangsar Road to lose about half a lane. This causes a bottleneck at the Maarof junction.

Why can't the taxi rank inside the station be utilized instead?

What say you Rapid KL? Bandaraya?

When it rains in Bangsar...



In the picture above, there is an unoccupied shop lot at the left, next to the DO NOTs sign. Well, now they are installing a few stalls to the right of this picture (not shown). I hope this doesn't make the station more crowded, but pray tell me, why can't the shop lot be let out first?

Missing ticket inspector



This is photographic evidence of what I have been talking about here and here! If Rapid KL is serious about this curi tulang incident, I can get Lex to supply the exact date and time.

Mind my English



I also think that Rapid KL staff need to be trained to converse in English and other languages as well. The example above (at KLCC) speaks for itself. There are plenty of old grandmothers who can't speak Malay very well. How about recruiting more Chinese and Tamil speakers? Or putting up signs in those languages too?

There are plenty of tourists who would find Rapid KL's coverage excellent, and why not sell it to them? After all next year is Visit Malaysia. But VMY2007 or no VMY2007, tourists or no tourists, Rapid KL and others better get their act together. The communication (and customer service) skills of most Rapid KL's staff is horrible.

Many are seen to be lazy, rude and indifferent to their customers. No amount of press releases and newspaper appearences can fix this, unless drivers, ticketing staff and other customer service personnel are seen to be doing a good job.

Oh, and there's this odd photo here. This was taken behind Central Market. Can Bandaraya or Bomba please take action?

1 Comments:

Anonymous Roy E said...

Appreciate you blogginng this

4:24 AM  

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