Loke: MY100 unlimited travel pass seeing huge surge in subscribers

KUALA LUMPUR: There has been a huge surge in subscription for Prasarana Malaysia Bhd's My100 unlimited travel pass within Klang Valley since the New Year, says Transport Minister Anthony Loke.

"There has been an increase by the thousands in the first seven days of this year, and I take this as a very good sign.

"There was a total of 34,472 subscribers for the whole month of December when the programme was introduced, compared to a total of 30,635 subscribers for the first week of this month," he told reporters at a press conference here today. (Jan 8).

Loke attributed the drastic jump in subscribers to LRT and MRT commuters experiencing direct cost of living savings after switching to the My100 unlimited monthly travel passes.

"Based on a study carried out, 63% of My100 uses saved RM100 and below, 27% saved between RM100 and RM200, while 8% saved more than RM200 on their monthly transportation cost," he said.

Loke, who took the MRT and LRT to the Prasarana headquarters in Bangsar, said he had received positive feedback from commuters on the programme.

He said Prasarana was confident of achieving its 200,000 subscriber target, which would result in a reduction in the government subsidy threshold for the programme.

According to him, the government had set aside an allocation of RM240mil to subsidise the My100 and My50 programme initiated by Prasarana.

"So far, we have subsidised about RM6.5mil a month for My100," he said, adding that the subsidy would be reduced to only RM4mil month if the 200,000 subscribers was achieved.

On the My50 unlimited monthly travel passes for bus rides in the Klang Valley, Loke said the demand was not as high as that for the My100.

"There are 1,577 subscribers for the My50 passes compared to 65,125 My100 subscribers.

"Although the numbers may be low for the My50, we will continued with the programme as there are commuters in Klang Valley who only use the Rapid KL bus service," he said.

Loke said Prasarana was looking at expanding the My50 programme to included Rapid Penang bus services in Penang.

He said the company was also looking at improving the mode of payment for the My100 programme, by including the use of Touch & Go cards, credit and debit cards and cashless QR code.

The My100 and My50 unlimited monthly passes for MRT, LRT and Rapid KL was launched on Dec 1 last year with commuters using the MyKad, MyKid and MyTentera documents.