Mobility is more important than new highways; better coordination with public transport needed – ALR

Amanat Lebuhraya Rakyat (ALR) group CEO Muhammad Nizam Alias has stated that the future of land transport in Malaysia lies not just in building more highways, but in rethinking mobility itself, reported New Straits Times.

The firm sees mobility as more important than just building highways to connect point-to-point travel, and instead should be about the “whole travel experience”, he said. “Mobility is about the whole journey. The safety aspect, travel time and experience. It’s not so much of just connecting dots. I see mobility as the way of the future,” he told the news daily.

Nizam stated that public transport services are insufficient particularly in the Klang Valley, and while the initial intention of highways was for them to address the issue of congestion, the highways themselves have become congested.

Reform of mobility should instead consider the optimisation of park-and-ride facilities along major highway corridors, along with stronger coordination between highways and public transport networks, he said.

“Encouraging commuters to shift modes before entering high density corridors can significantly improve traffic distribution and reduce peak hour pressure within city centres. Highways cannot operate in isolation,” Nizam said.

Fairness in terms of fares paid is considered, too, according to Nizam. “Is it fair for people to pay the same price during congestion and also during non-congestion hours? It is not fair. So if we talk about mobility, we need to ensure fairness,” he said.

Amanat Lebuhraya Rakyat is also piloting behavioural interventions to reduce congestion, and the plans include implementing zip-merging at junctions, Nizam said. “We want to explore the behavioural change approach. Congestion is easy to resolve but the challenge is to change the behaviour of the public,” he said.

Mobility reform should also be backed by stronger digital mobility architecture such as the adoption of multi-lane fast flow (MLFF) systems, expanded licence plate recognition capabilities and radio frequency identification (RFID) integration, he continued.

“These technologies form part of the longer-term mobility framework being evaluated to improve traffic efficiency, strengthen enforcement capability and enable better demand management,” he said.

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