Solving the last mile problem

ONE reason why commuters in Kuala Lumpur are less inclined to use public transport is that most of them don’t live near a transport hub.

In Klang Valley, 60% of homes are located one to 3km from a rail station, “last-mile” distances that are farther than in comparable countries.

A recent national survey undertaken by the Micromobility Research Partnership (MRP) shows that 83% of Malaysians use a car for at least part of their daily commute, and three-quarters make their whole journey by car.

On average, respondents needed a 30- to 33-minute walk to their nearest public transport connection, so it’s no surprise that cars and motorcycles offer a more convenient way to get around.

The end result? More cars on the road, which means increased emissions, crashes and congestion.

It is well known that motorists in the Klang Valley spend about one to two hours commuting daily, and at least 44 hours per month inside their vehicles, stuck in traffic jams.

Multiply the average hourly wage of RM7 in KL by two hours and 22 working days a month, and the productivity cost from time wasted in commuting adds up to RM308 monthly! That’s a loss to the country of RM3,696 per capita in annual economic value.

While the obvious long-term solution is to continue building our transport network and improving operations, this will take years and cost billions. But there’s an inexpensive way to boost public transport ridership today – e-mobility via shared small electric vehicles like scooters and bikes.

Imagine stepping from your door and within 100m, you find a scooter or other small electric vehicle that you can activate with an app on your phone. Five minutes later, you reach your transport hub. When you return, a scooter is there to take you home. The per ride cost is minimal, certainly less than driving to work or parking your car at a station, and the time savings add up to hours each week.

More importantly, e-mobility is fluid. As new transport hubs open, mobility can follow without taking years to build in the way a fixed network extension would, and the types of vehicles can vary as required.

Some have criticised e-mobility as risky. However, in its recent global analysis of road accident data, the International Transport Forum (2020) reported that the fatality rate on shared e-scooters is no worse than bicycles, and significantly lower than motorbikes.

In countries where e-mobility is well developed, such as Australia and New Zealand, research shows that up to 50% of all shared e-scooter trips would otherwise have been made in a car, so there is growing academic interest in the potential of e-scooters to reduce the overall road accident rate.

And fewer car trips means fewer CO2 emissions. A significant portion of car trips are made with just one person travelling less than 5km in a fossil-fueled vehicle that weighs around 60 times more than an e-scooter. The inefficiency of such energy use is obvious.

Meanwhile, journeys on shared e-scooters (including emissions produced in manufacturing and distribution) generally result in greenhouse gas emissions that are less than 10% of equivalent car trips.

Of course, there are issues to work through with e-mobility, such as the need for dedicated scooter and bike lanes, and parking plans. We need usage regulations, speed restrictors, and enough vehicles to make it reliable. But these are all do-able.

We Malaysians love our cars. For us, they are more than a means of transport; they’re aspirational, a symbol of accomplishment, and provide privacy and freedom on the road.

But with time and population growth, perhaps public transport will ultimately offer greater freedom. The task is to find creative solutions to make it work.

E-mobility seems a fair start.

FARIS FAIZAL

Transport consultant at Arup (a global sustainable development consultancy) and FERDINAND BALFOORT Managing partner, Micromobility Research Partnership

(www.theMRP.org)