Prasarana has announced that it plans to add more than 300 buses to Rapid Bus’ public transport fleet in 2024. That figure includes 100 electric buses with an allocation of RM180 million, according to Prasarana president and group chief executive officer Mohd Azharuddin Mat Sah.

Azharuddin said that the first phase of the plan to increase the number of buses would only involve Rapid KL due to the high demand from users in Klang Valley. Prasarana will start opening tenders in the first quarter of 2023 with a provision to upgrade infrastructure and electrical cables at station depots to charge the electric buses.

The CEO stated that the company currently has a total of 1540 Rapid KL buses but only operates 1183 daily. He said that the figure is still quite small compared to other countries with efficient public transport like Singapore. For context, Singapore has around 5800 buses with about 3% of the fleet kept at depots as operational reserves.

Of the 100 electric buses that will be added, 45 of them will be electric mini buses measuring seven to eight metres long while 55 will be large buses measuring 10 to 12 metres. Rapid Bus had already operated trials of electric buses earlier this year from April to June on routes 400 and 650.

The Prasarana chief added that they are confident in moving the 100 electric buses in parallel with the improvement in the rail system in the future. It’s interesting to note that the BRT Sunway Line already exclusively uses electric buses for its services.

Klang Valley’s public transport system is set to receive a much-needed upgrade with the KLAV 27 project, which will see the Kelana Jaya LRT line receive a total of 27 new trains between 2023 and 2024, with the first batch of trains expected to be delivered in the third quarter of next year. The project will cost RM1.7 billion while an allocation of RM800 million will be used to perform maintenance and overhaul on 35 existing train sets.

(Source: Bernama)