Unfortunately we live in a time where women are still fearful for their safety when taking public transport. Steps have been taken to ensure safety such as introducing a ladies only coach on the train. But even then sometimes men still ignore the signs and interrupt the space. Now, buses on the KL – Seremban route will be providing women-only buses during peak hours.
There are currently three express bus companies that make the journey from KL to Seremban and back everyday. Transport Minister Anthony Loke has now made it mandatory that these companies provide an additional eight trips. These trips are exclusively for women.
Having this effort in ensuring women’s safety is the result of many requests from female passengers. The additional trips will be added to the peak hours where there are many passengers traveling for work.
Four trips will be added between 5am to 7am while the other four will be between 5pm and 7pm.
This is a very good effort by the transport ministry to ensure the safety of female passengers. In fact we hope that they will continue to work towards these kind of issues.
We also hope that male passengers will respect the boundaries that have been set and not abuse it in any way. The three bus companies must take all measures in making sure only women are allowed on board the allocated buses.
Another piece of good news is that the bus companies have also been instructed to reduce their fares. A one way ticket is now priced at RM6.50 instead of the previous RM7.
If the bus companies do not follow the new fare they risk losing their license. As of now, all the bus companies are following the new pricing of tickets.
