DAP's Ong Kian Ming said the initiative was needed to ease the burden of the people and increase ridership as well as usage of public transportation. ― Picture by Choo Choy May

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 11 — Opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH) plans to introduce a monthly RM100 unlimited travel card for public transportation commute, should they come into power, DAP's Ong Kian Ming said.

The Serdang MP said the initiative was needed to ease the burden of the people and increase ridership as well as usage of public transportation.

Citing statistics from the Ministry of Transport, Ong said there was a spike in ridership last August when the government introduce a 50 per cent rebate on all fares.

This phenomenon however did not last for the subsequent months, he said, showing that riders were price sensitive.

“This is why it is necessary to introduce an affordable monthly public transportation pass to allow passengers to have unlimited rides on the LRT, MRT, Monorail and Rapid KL buses as a way to increase public transportation usage,” the elected representative said in a statement.

“I am confident with the introduction of this pass (RM100 unlimited travel pass), public transportation usage especially on the LRT, MRT and Rapid buses will increase significantly, perhaps even beyond the daily ridership figures set in August 2017 when the LRT and MRT fares were reduced by 50 per cent,” he added.

Based on the statistics, Ong pointed that the ridership for LRT Kelana Jaya line peaked in August with 262,606 riders during the promotional month and dropped by 43,038 riders in the subsequent month.

This same trend was also noted with other lines with the LRT Ampang line recording the second highest decline in ridership, followed by MRT and KL Monorail.

Last October, Ong had highlighted this similar case, stressing that something had to be done to the increase the lack of ridership on the rail system.

He had said that billions of ringgits were spent for these projects and that they should not be gone to waste by allowing such a scenario to occur.