SPAD to suspend 27 KTB bus permits

PETALING JAYA: Twenty-seven Konsortium Transnasional Bhd (KTB) bus permits for the Kuala Lumpur-Kota Baru route will be suspended from April 23, following the Bentong crash that claimed three lives on April 12.

The Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) said an audit on KTB found that the company did not monitor its bus fleet’s speed limits, and that the Global Positioning System (GPS) on these buses were not working.

“SPAD will in effect on April 23, 2014, suspend 27 Transnasional express bus permits on the east-north sector route, following an accident involving the company,” its chief executive Mohd Nur Ismal Kamal said in a statement.

He warned that similar action would “definitely” be taken against operators whose buses were involved in accidents last week if they were found to have violated licence conditions.

Following this action against KTB, he said SPAD would audit all bus operators in the peninsula on the monitoring of their GPS speed limit compliance. Operators who fail to follow set conditions will have their licences suspended.

Mohd Nur said SPAD would require operators to:

> Appoint controllers to monitor the speed limit of buses in realtime, and act if drivers break speed li­mits;

> Take strong action against dri­vers who violate safety regulations and report them to SPAD;

>Update their drivers’ details through SPAD’s Driver Information System;

>Present their GPS speed limit observation reports to SPAD, and explain speed limit violations, if any; and

> Display bus supervisor hotline information in and out of the bus for passengers’ convenience.

Mohd Nur also said that SPAD was studying the possibility of using “black boxes” and speed limiters in trade vehicles.

On April 12, a Somalian and his pregnant Malaysian wife and another passenger were killed in a bus crash near Bentong. Ten others, including the driver, who later tested positive for drug, were injured.

On April 19, 10 people were injured when an express bus crashed into a road divider on the East Coast Highway.

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