To Ride or Not To Ride?

It’s 1:00 PM in Petaling Jaya. The sun is sharp overhead. The app says the bus will arrive in 5 minutes.

keep scrolling

For many commuters, this uncertainty isn’t an exception. It’s a daily norm.

This is Amirul.

A 21-year-old student who depends on the Route 802 Rapid KL bus. Car? Too expensive. E-hailing? Not sustainable.

Let’s see what Amirul’s commute looks like in the data.

On 2^nd April, 59.70% of Route 802 buses were on time¹. The rest? Too early or too late.

The routes in the red shaded area² may experience more than three delayed buses per week.

Most Rapid KL bus routes tend to have early buses, which is worse than late ones since we end up waiting longer for the next bus.

Here’s what happened with the buses from April to June.

Month after month, unpredictability persists.

But what about MRT Feeder Bus? Do they experience the same issue?

Majority of MRT Feeder bus routes cluster together near "on-time" corner, implying consistent on-time arrivals.

And it remains consistent across all three months.

But is looking at arrival times alone enough?

Imagine your bus leaves before the scheduled time.

You reach the stop and it's gone.

Now you are standing there longer, feeling unsafe, especially at night.

Just because the bus didn't follow the schedule.

It’s not only about how often buses arrive on time, but also how long people are left waiting when buses don’t arrive on-time.

Bus Performance Index (BPI) by operator in April

On paper, punctuality may look okay. In reality, the waiting time penalty makes the ride much worse³.

Nevertheless, MRT Feeder bus routes still perform well even after considering waiting time.

Rapid KL bus routes on the other hand decreased rapidly, meaning that it's either the bus never arrived on time or the waiting time is too long.

But what do the people say?

placeholder