One journey to rule them all – when will commuters get one ticket?

IT is 8.05am. A commuter arrives from Ipoh on the ETS (Electric Train Service), changes to the Komuter, then the LRT, then a feeder bus. Four legs, three fare transactions, two apps on one phone. If the first train runs late and the connection is missed, nobody is answerable for the journey as a whole. That, more than any shortage of trains, is what keeps Malaysians in their cars.

Rapid KL alone carried an average of 1.31 million passenger trips a day in 2025, up 11% on 2024, peaking at 1.63 million on Dec 31. Yet the National Transport Policy target of a 40% modal share by 2030 remains distant, with usage only near 20%. More trains alone will not close that gap. The journey itself must become easy to plan, pay for, and complain about in one place.