BUG to bug dr teng hock nan

calling penangites who uses the public transport!

(people rushing for the transit link bus. picture taken from china press.)

if you do not know yet, i.e. if you do not read the star paper or surf the penangwatch website, a new group known as ‘bus user groups‘ or BUG in short had been formed on 14 april during a public hearing at d space, weld quay (same place we had our bloggers/podcast/cms workshop).

basically BUG is formed to gather feedback of the new bus system. as many of you are aware, there were lots of hiccups and complaints from bus commuters on the revamp of the new bus service.

oh, btw, dr teng’s name is up there because he is the state exco in charge of the revamping of the bus system.

my colleague, joachim (but different department), had taken one step further with his complaints – he sent out a press release, and was later interviewed by the star (original statement here), then the next day, when he was over-charged (original statement here), he made a police report!

way to go, joachim! if only more people are like him – take action! instead of only grumbling at the kopi tiam or mamak stalls. yes, take action! be brave to assert your rights, to complain directly to the government hotline number – 04 2682202, and leave your name, address and tel. no.

when this news of joachim came out in the star paper, joachim said that he received lots of sms from friends who say “good! good! i support you!”. joachim however, told them off that it ‘s no point they saying that they support him. he wants them to support the bus system, i.e. they themselves go and complain and make noises instead of silently, backing him on the background only.

bus commuters, take down this hotline no. – 2682202 . whenever you find you are over-charged, the drivers did not keep to their routes, your bus did not arrive after 20 mins, the driver refusing to move the bus after 20 mins, call at once and directly report them! remember the no. 2682202.

i don’t take the bus everyday but usually on weekends if i leave the house, i will take the bus. so far i had been over-charged once… but at that time i did not know of the hotline no. yet. last sunday the milan bus 3-1 that i took was a tour bus! there were no bells on the bus, thus at every major bus-stops, the driver had to call out “ada orang turun?”. and being a tour bus, there were no railings or something for people to hold on to. they can only hold on to the seats, which btw, some were not properly maintained i see. what to do – they were 2nd hand bus so like that lah.

i share the sentiments of ‘lilu’ who wrote in the star of 17 april her views on the new bus system. when all these problems cropped up and all that, i was wondering to myself, why didn’t the authorities make sure everything is ok first before implementing the new bus system. for example, only less than 10 buses passed the puspakom test, and yet all buses were allowed to be on the road. and the lack of buses? why did not the authorities make sure there are sufficient buses before implemting the new bus system?

lilu also rightly stated:

yes, all these things should have been seen to before the revamp. the gomen seems to be doing things ‘terbalik. they start the new bus system, then now only try to get extra buses lah, recruit conductors lah, print the bus fares lah, issue tickets lah – all these should be done right in the beginning!

ok i won’t grumble too much on the new bus system or else you would fall asleep. i had already blog on it earlier here and several people had voiced their opinion that the bus system is lousy. yes, we all know that already so i will only write about it once in a while. if you want to read about it frequently, don’t forget to go to the penangwatch website, ok. (audio are also available there!).