preliminary assessment on reliability of public bus service in kota ...

PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT ON
RELIABILITY OF PUBLIC BUS SERVICE
IN KOTA BHARU
AP DR MADZLAN NAPIAH
NOORFAKHRIAH YAAKUB
MSc IN CIVIL ENGINEERING
UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI PETRONAS

OUTLINE
• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Methodology
• Progress
• Future Direction
• Reference

Introduction
• Travelling trips needed are increased to comply with
the increase in economic activities and rapid growth of
urbanization.
• Many possess their own vehicle for accessing the
urban service, which before long resulting in traffic
congestion.
• Citizen has to pay fuel and toll price in order to move
from one place to another, therefore a cheaper
alternative should be enhanced.
• The use of public bus can reduce traffic congestion,
save money and time, and less pollution emission

Introduction
Problem Statement
• “Transport infrastructure in the country is ready
to meet the needs of the 21 st century
expectation” – The Government
• “Public bus service is satisfactory”
– The bus operator
• “Frustrated with present situation of public bus
system in Malaysia”
– The public

Introduction
Objectives of Study
(conceptual framework and <strong>preliminary</strong> survey)
• To determine the PI
• To determine user comfort and problems
• To conclude the state of reliability
• To recommend solutions for arising problems
• To advise new route or necessary schedule

Scope (Limitation)
• Conducted in Kota Bharu
• Conducted for city buses only (6 routes)
• Using on board method (can determine
reason for delayed or missed trips)
• One week data for each route

Literature Review
• Current state of Malaysia’s public transport
especially public bus is perceived of unable to
meet citizen’s needs satisfactorily. Many claim
that if the public transport is being improved,
they are willing to use it instead of paying for
outrageous petrol prices and tolls and ending
up stuck in traffic jams
(Kambala, 2007).

Literature Review
• Government Transportation Programme (GTP)
is introduced in 2009
Figure 1: The percentage (modal share) of public transport user in Klang Valley by year. Broken
line indicates the target to be achieved by end of 2010 (13%) and 2012(25%).

Literature Review
• Kota Bharu, capital city of Kelantan expands
403km 2 with 500 000 population (Statistics,
2010)
Figure 2: Kota Bharu as the capital
city of Kelantan state (Department
of Survey and Mapping Malaysia
JUPEM, 2005)

Literature Review
• Reliability of transportation system can be
defined as the ability of the system to adhere to a
schedule or maintain regular headways and a
consistent travel time; in other words, as the ontime/punctuality
performance and headway
evenness (Chen, 2009)
• For Malaysian Ministry of Transportation, the
reliability of public transport is defined as the
percentage of journey times completed within 60
minutes during the morning peak period (GTP
Roadmap, 2010).

Literature Review
• Factors affecting reliability:
• 1. Traffic Characteristics
• 2. Route Characteristics
• 3. Passenger Characteristics
• 4. Bus Operational Characteristics
(Liu, 2008)

Literature Review
• In this paper, the Punctuality Index of a bus
service is a factor indicating the time gap
between scheduled and actual arriving and
departing time for a bus, or also called the
headway adherence.
• The Traffic Capacity and Quality of Service
Manual (TCQSM, 2003) suggests that both
OTP and headway adherence can be used as a
measure in reliability indication.

Literature Review
• Kho (2005) suggested formulation used for PI:
S
2
P is Punctuality Index
h is scheduled headway
P
…(1)
S is variable
h
S
2 1
I
i
I
1
t i
i
2
…(2)
I is no. of operations
t is actual arrival time
τ is scheduled arrival time

Methodology
• On Board Method
-Surveyor ride on buses
-Off board method will record more bus trips per
period of time compared to on board but using
on board method, the surveyor can observe the
passenger profile and reasons of delay.
-The required data are: bus schedule, number of
trips, frequency, distance to each stops, actual
arrival and departure time at stations and stops.

Methodology
• Questionnaires
-Questionnaires are distributed to get
passengers view of the public bus service in
Kota Bharu and their expectation.
• Handheld GPS to determine distance
-Garmin software is used to determine the
exact distance of each route.

Progress
• Two bus station to cater for city buses, located
about 200m from each stations.
Table 1: Bus routes in Kota Bharu
No. Station Trip ID Bus Route Route Type
1
4 Kota Bharu - Kompleks Sekolah - Padang Tembak Direct
2 Hilir Pasar 8 Kota Bharu - Kemumin - Sabak Direct
3 9 Kota Bharu - Pengkalan Chepa - Sabak Direct
4
10 Kota Bharu - Penambang - Pantai Cahaya Bulan Direct
5 Buluh Kubu 61A Kota Bharu - Kubang Kerian - Pasir Hor - Kg. Sireh Loop
6 61B Kota Bharu - Kg. Sireh - Pasir Hor - Kubang Kerian Loop

Progress
• City bus route in Kota Bharu
Figure 6: Kota Bharu e- map (JUPEM, 2004) with the city bus routes.

Progress
The Passenger
• Complained buses always late
• Long waiting time
• Some route have fewer bus allocation
• Is shifting to other modes of tansportation
The Schedule
• Bus depart according to schedule, however
headway is big due to bus shortage
• Causes of delay: heavy traffic, school children

Progress
The Driver
• Some drivers depart earlier than schedule,
causing headway too big.
• Some passengers can’t afford to wait too long.
• Making public bus unattractive in the long run
The Bus Condition
• Grade B (27 seats, 7 standing)
• Comfortable, air-conditioned, two automated
doors
• Economical ticketing system

Progress
The Company
• Cityliner, the only public bus operator for
Kelantan state
• Citizen totally rely on the service
• The company is in progress of buying more
buses to satisfy user’s demand

Future Direction
• This paper is a part of an ongoing research whereby only the
conceptual framework is presented.
• This study is focused on determining the reliability of public
bus on Kota Bharu in terms of Punctuality Index analysis.
• The expected outcome will be the analysis of data gathered
during survey which will determine the reliability and
performance of the bus service.
• From the analysis, discussion and inference can be carried out
to enhance this study, then recommendation can be advised
to improve the service or introduce new feasible route.
• Such studies should be conducted in other places to improve
the public bus service in many parts of Malaysia. Thus the
people will have more option for better transportation.

Reference
• Abdalla Nurdeen Kambala, Riza Atiq, O.K. Rahmat, Amiruddin Ismail. (2007). Why Do People Use Their Cars: A Case Study In
Malaysia. Journal of Social Sciences 3 (3): 117 – 122.
• Basic Population Characteristics by Administrative Districts June 2010. (2010). Department of Statistics.
• Malaysia. Retrieved from http://www.statistics.gov.my/~Itemid=53&lang=en/
• Carlos Gershenson, Luis A. Pineda. (2009). Why Does Public Transport Not Arrive on Time? The
• Pervasiveness of Equal Headway Instability. Plos One open access, Vol. 4, Issue 10.
• E-Map, Kelantan Electronic Map. (2004). Department of Survey and Mapping (JUPEM). Kelantan,
• Malaysia.
• Government Tranportation Programme – Roadmap. (2010). Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD). Retrieved from
http://www.pemandu.gov.my/~gid=41&lang=en/
• Jamilah Mohamad dan Nik Ibtisamiah Ibrahim. (2005). Characteristics of Bus Service Provision in Kota
• Bharu, Kelantan. Journal of Transportation Science Society of Malaysia 1 13-25.
• John Bates. (2009). An Agenda for Research on Reliability. Association for European Transport and
• Contributors.
• Margareta Friman. (2004). Implementing Quality Improvement in Public Transport. Journal of Public
• Transportation. Vol. 7, No. 4.
• Nicholas J. Garber & Lester A. Hoel (2002). Traffic and Highway Engineering, 3 rd Edition. Toronto, Canada. Thomson Learning. p. 571.
• Ronghui Liu and Shalini Sinha. (2008). Modelling Urban Bus Service and Passenger Reliability.
• Seung-Young Kho, Jun-Sik Park, Young-Ho Kim, Eun-Ho Kim. (2005). A Development of Punctuality
• Index for Bus Operation. Journal of the eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies. Vol. 6.
• p 492 – 504.
• Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual. (2003). 2 nd Edition. Retrieved from
• http://trb.org/~/part%201.pdf
• Xumei Chen, Leio Yu, Yushi Zhang, Jifu Guo. (2009). Analyzing Urban Bus Service Reliability at The Stop, Route, and Network Levels.
Journal of transportation Research Part A 43.
• Yuko J. Nakanishi. (1997). Bus Performance Indicator: On-Time Performance and Service Regularity.
• Transportation Research Record 1571 3-12.