KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 24): Rapid Bus Sdn Bhd (Rapid Bus), a subsidiary of Prasarana Malaysia Bhd, is looking into the possibility of increasing the current fleet of RapidKL buses from 1,800 to 3,600 within the next five years. This initiative is geared towards minimising passenger waiting times and enhancing overall efficiency in public transport, particularly in the bus service sector.

“We [Rapid Bus] discussed this issue with the Ministry of Transport and are in the process of getting more buses in the next five years. And the target is to maximise bus frequency and numbers on the road,” said Muhammad Yazurin Sallij, CEO of Rapid Bus, during a panel discussion at the ‘Sustainable and Safe Urban Mobility’ forum which took place at Glasshouse Seputeh on Tuesday.

Moreover, he noted that Rapid Bus has conducted benchmarking, comparing the efficiency of its services with Singapore's public bus system, which stands out in terms of number of buses and service frequency.

According to The Straits Times, as at May 2022, Singapore has over 5,800 public buses with an average fleet age of eight years.

In December 2023, Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) added a total of 360 new electric buses to the public bus fleet and set a target to have all public buses run on cleaner energy by 2040, with half of the public bus fleet to be electric by 2030.

“In the next five years, we will definitely scale and also steer towards deploying electric buses on the road. As a government agency, we do believe that we need to be the catalyst in terms of transitioning towards electric vehicles (EVs) as outlined in the National Energy Transition Roadmap and as stated by MOT,” Muhammad Yazurin added.

Meanwhile, according to news reports, Prasarana is applying for an energy audit with conditional grant to assess and guide the implementation of zero-, low- and medium-cost energy efficiency measures. The company plans to add 100 new electric buses this year and 1,166 new electric buses between 2025 and 2030. It aims to achieve 100% EV adoption by 2037.