mini bus experiences

the mini buses (on the extreme left, and the third one on the right, with the other buses at the KOMTAR/prangin mall bus interchange. photo taken from the china press.

came across this article by a friend, anil netto via politics101.

anil wrote in IPS that the citizen for public transport (CPT), a network of 24 civil society groups, is planning to file suit against the federal commercial vehicle licensing board (CVLB) in the hope of encouraging it to improve public transport on penang island.
note: read the press statement from CPT calling urgent reform in penang public transport._

in that article, one joachim xavier (a colleague of mine – different dept.) from POHD was mentioned saying that the bus service in penang is atrocious.

i can sure attest to that because as i don’t drive, i depend on the public transport, particularly the mini bus a lot. (oh i have my chaly but it is used in town area only). and i always travel quite a far distant – from my place in bayan baru to komtar (and vice versa). lots of experiences i can tell you if you care to know.

yes i know overall CPT is asking for a better public transport and apart from mini bus, we have other bus services. since i take the mini bus a lot, i am going to share my experience regarding the mini bus.

to continue reading, please click on ‘more’ below.

now that the mini buses are leased to individuals, usually the drivers will wait and wait till his bus is full, only he will move. and oh boy, how full it was! jam packed! until people standing at the staircase. they want more people so can get more money lah.

then their driving – tsk tsk terrible! all vehicles on the road must make way for them! they are the kings of the road! they will weave in and out like nobody’s business. even if they have to stop (to pick or drop off passengers) on the left side of the road, they would cruise on the right side, and just a few metres before they are going to stop, they will suddenly cut in to the left. ahh and at traffic light – they were always impatient to queue on the right lane for turning but instead use the straight lane until they are right in front, then slowy squeeze in to the right lane.

at times, suka-suka, they would change thier routes. that is not so bad then compare to when they chase you down from the bus asking you to take another bus. yep! you heard me right. especially at the bukit jambul stop, when the mini bus i was in say had only 3 or 4 passengers, the bus driver did not want to continue on his journey, so he asked the passengers to go down and take the other bus that happened to stop there. this happened to me many times.

several weeks ago, for the first time, this happened too… with a difference…. when there was no other bus around! there were only 2 of us left in the bus when we reached bkt. jambul. the driver asked us to get down and gave us back the RM1 charge to take another bus. how can he do that when there’s no bus around? i understand like the other numerous times it happened, the driver will usually chase his passengers down only if there is already another bus there, but this time, there is no bus, i was asked to get off. and oh boy, i had to wait so long for the next bus. grrr!!

now, the condition of the bus – yes, dirty, filthy, smelly, damaged seats, leaking pipes (with water dripping down!)…. and no air-con! we are paying RM1 for the air con too but we get no air con! not that there is no air con in the bus but the air con is not cooling at all. either it is faulty or the driver did not turn the air-con on. and you know lah, with so many people inside, and no air-con, it is so stuffy inside. made me perspire gallons of sweat! (ok exaggeration but not to far from the truth).

just last saturday, when i took this mini bus, i saw one of the seat was ripped off and was lying on the floor of the bus. then at the last 2 rows seat, the roof of the bus was exposed and we can clearly see some pipes here and there, and water was dripping from the pipes!! can you imagine that? i should have taken a picture of the damaged seat or the leaking pipe and submitted it to the star’s citizen blog… but i am a timid person by nature. i dare not wipe out my phone cam in front of so many people with all eyes on me and goes ‘kreak, kreak’ with the phone cam. ok next time i’ll try to gather more courage to snap a picture… who knows i might win RM50 and at the same time letting people see how atrociously deplorable the mini bus is…. and poor me (in both sense) is in the mini bus.