The key roles and responsibilities of an urban transport authority should entail; budgeting and funding, integrated transport planning, standards development, fares definition and economic regulation, tendering and licensing, performance monitoring, standards enforcement, infrastructure ownership and management, ticketing and fares collection and traffic management. What applies to Malaysia? Three areas for consideration:
a. Is there a need for an integrated Transport Authority to regulate and manage the urban transport sector in the major agglomerations?
b. Are urban public transport service offerings developed based on an integrated urban and transport planning approach? Are urban transport services closely integrated to provide a seamless service proposition?
c. Is the performance management of the service providers / operators consistent, transparent and comprehensive? What sanctions are appropriate for non-performing operators?
Regulatory fragmentation has been frequently indentified as the root cause for Malaysia’s public transportation system woes. Institutional inefficiencies, lack of integration and absence of key functions are the three identified areas of regulatory fragmentation in governance that normally leads to such woes. The result will normally leave a country or city with a myriad of problems such as underdeveloped public transportation, high pollution levels, congestion issues and low safety levels. The cited examples of 6 densely populated cities i.e. London, Singapore, Paris, Hong Kong, Auckland and Berlin as places to learn from because of their quality reputation in transportation governance. In applying a comprehensive transport governance framework (policy, planning & regulation, operations and enforcement) to the transport authorities of the six cities, six valuable lessons were learnt. These consisted of:
a. Separation of regulation from operations
Regulatory and operations functions are separate with the planning/regulating body having no interest in the ongoing operations. Such operations could be performed by either public or private sector operators with the infrastructure and rolling stock being owned by the regulating body.
b. Planning integration
All planning and regulatory functions for all public transport modes that are undertaken by one organisation that facilitates integration. It was discovered that intermodal integration is ensured at three levels which are; capacity & route planning, infrastructure planning and fare planning. Transport planning is also highly integrated with urban development.
c. Functions-based structure
The transport authority adopts a function-based organisational structure to ensure integrated planning across all modes of public transport and to have a direct link with the public transport operators.
d. Budgeting and funding
Authority is typically responsible for collecting subsidies from government and allocating them to the public transport operators. The allocation is a key in managing the sector and ensuring coordination / integration. In some cases, funds are allocated by the transport authority to the local authorities for infrastructure projects like roads.
e. Active monitoring
The performance of public transport operators are monitored and evaluated against defined KPIs covering operations and environmental areas. The service contracts provides sanctions, including termination, in cases of non compliance.
f. Industry consolidation
The private sector would be consolidation into cohesive organisations that are generally done by the authorities. This move is to ensure effective regulation and to scale up investments which otherwise might be difficult to source from individuals and small operators.
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