Bus In University of Malaya: Is It Really Functional and Punctual?

by Nur Dini Husna

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Buses have been the mode of transportation for the people for almost a century with its cheap fare and are convenient for everyone especially university students. In this fast-paced era, everything is just one click away, where you can book or rent cars or even better, owning their own cars. However, for people who are under privileged and far from home, bus will always be their choice of public transportation.

Being the main medium of transportation for the people or students does not give the rights to drivers or buses companies to do just about anything they want and to treat people with their bad services. Not that I am trying to say that all bus companies give awful services, but some of them are just too ignorant as they use their marketing strategies to take advantage on people who are incapable of giving bad reviews to them.

In University of Malaya itself, own bus services operate from morning till late evening on weekdays are provided for the students. However, students are not only given the choices to go for the shuttle buses but they are also open to other options too which are the Rapid bus and the MRT bus.

So, here is the catch; students prefer to take the other buses rather than taking the shuttle buses which are free, and why is that? Time is very essential for students with classes from the crack of dawn and not to exaggerate, but sometimes the classes are far from the places they live in. They have to wake up early in the morning just to catch the buses, but hey imagine what they would feel after waiting for almost one hour but the bus still has yet to show up? This is what the struggle that the students have to face on their daily basis.

Sunny, 25, an international student of University of Malaya from China said that buses have always been the transportation that she uses to go anywhere in the university area.

“However, there are few drawbacks in regard of the shuttle bus here in UM. One of them is that drivers do not obey the schedule and at times students have to wait for a long time for the bus to come” said Sunny.

The problem does not only lies with the shuttle bus but the same goes to the Rapid bus. 9 out of 10 students said that MRT buses are more preferable to them than the other two options in terms of punctuality.

Figure 1: Picture from the application 'BusMalaya'

A postgraduate student, Shoma, 24, said, “I take the bus here almost every day, and I hate to say it but UM’s shuttle bus really need to follow their schedule more or increase the number of their buses so that I, or any students could be at certain places on time”.

The motive of the shuttle buses being provided for the students is to make it easy for them to go to any places in the university quicker rather than walking for a distance, yet the outcome is the other way around.

Despite having an application that provides the information of the buses’ schedule, buses still arrive late and it is somehow upsetting.

Not only that, there are few cases that often occur in relation to the Rapid bus. The buses are not only at times late, but some of the drivers are plainly rude.

“It happens almost every day where students or even not students wait so long for the bus to come and when it does, people rush to get into the bus and whenever the driver feels like it, he will shut the door without letting the people know and leave”.

It is understandable that the bus is full but to shut the door without notifying is over the line. People will then have to wait for another whole 30 minutes or more for the other bus to come.

It gets worse when the driver does not even bother to wait for the students, even when they can see that the students are running to catch the bus yet they would just leave. These issues have come to the attention of several students and this prompt them not to take the Rapid bus.

There are a lot of other issues that concern the busses that operating in UM, but the main issue would be focused on the time and the schedule. Drivers or bus companies should not be taking it simply just because the fare is cheap or excusing these acts on any basis. The reason why some people take buses is probably because they could not afford any other types of transportation to go to places. This matter should be taken into consideration by all related parties and it is only a matter of time till someone take an action against these issues regarding to buses.