public transportation is always a money-losing venture. it helps the country to have cheap public transportation though. btw, why isn't Anthony Loke the transportation minister handling this "logistics" issue?

You know that people who ride LRT are complaining that the fees are expensive right? if you squeeze the middle income (who use these public transportation networks) you squeeze the working class.

gov hospital and schools dont make a profit
why must mrt lrt make big profit?

Am surprised that youre okay with the privatisation of public services, especially since it looks like its going to be subsidised and is being done via direct negotiations.

Kinda like ipp, i suppose.

Im personally okay with privatisation. However, im not sure if grab's model can ensure efficient service. How many cars would be needed to carry the same number of people on a bus? How can they ensure that theres enough drivers at the same location at the same time to make sure that riders who just got off dont have to wait 30 mins to get a ride?

While innovation is great, sometimes a solution becomes the drfault solution because its the best one thus far.

For most of early working life, i did rely on the trains, feeder buses and taxis most days of the week. As far as i saw, there were long queues for both buses and cabs. Making the queue for buses disappear and replacing it with what is essentially the new version of cabs just makes me imagine 30, 40 people at the station simultaneously trying to book a ride.

Of course, thats assuming the rider has a phone that can run the app. I have no idea whats the solution if the rider is a bit on the poor side and only has a less-smart phone.
The pursuit for cutting costs is good, but that shouldnt excuse the need for logic or accountability.

Its like saying youre going to sell the fourth wheel of your car. "There's three more wheels," is the excuse. Sure itd raise some money, but in the end you lose out more because it just makes the entire car useless. The proposed solution created more problems than it solved.

The concern here is that this may cause the same scenario. Buses during peak hours are already packed and often late - introducing another random element in that you dont know whtehr theres a grad driver around is one such additional problem.

Plus, why just deal wjth grab - theres a few other hailing services, and of course, taxi drivers. Im pretty sure this last group is going to make some noise of the govt decides to basically subsidise their competitors at the last place taxis seem to operate.

Vans are a good idea, but again, reliability. Having prasarana replace its less busy routes (or less busy times of the day) with vans might be valid.

Thats predicated on the basis that a reliable system is necessary to maximise the use of the lrt/mrt itself. I think the main issue would be not to burden the people who could least afford it, and to not reduce the efficacy of some other moving part by tweaking this or that.

But i agree with your earlier suggestion to optimise routes. Less utilised areas would be better served by smaller vehicles.