It was very interesting to read about the new Scomi Rail Technology Centre being built in Rawang.

The completion of this facility will expand Scomi's manufacturing abilities and allow them to build monorail carriages and electric-multiple unit carriages at their assembly lines.

Scomi is already working to refurbish RapidKL buses and will also tender for the refurbishment of KTM’s Komuter EMU carriages.

Perhaps in the future, Scomi will become the ‘go to’ company for public transportation in Malaysia. This is probably a good exercise of strategic planning since public transport will become more important to Malaysia in the future.

I find it unfortunate though that Scomi and the Malaysian government still have not bothered to invest in Malaysia's public transportation. Scomi may be doing a good job of refurbishing the RapidKL buses (although I have yet to hear about specific improvements).

Perhaps they will do a good job refurbishing the KTMB Komuter carriages too. But I also note that Scomi introduced the Sutra second generation monorail in November 2007, and then proceeded to compete for monorail projects in Vietnam and India.

To date, no announcements have been made to buy more monorail carriages for the KL Monorail, even though this would be an obvious way to improve services and improve the image of the government and help Scomi demonstrate the Sutra monorail to the world.

This is why I think the government has ‘lost the plot’ when it comes to public transportation. Witness the comments by the transport minister who stated: ‘Public transportation has overnight become a solution to many road users following the rise in the price of petrol’.

Public transport is not an overnight solution and we can see that the government has not understood this. It seems that the government has been ‘sleeping’ on the public transportation file for the past 10 years.

Hence, the failure to push for better public transport in the past few years, beyond the Intrakota and RapidKL bus services which did not provide the improvements that were promised.

We know that the government has ignored, ‘reviewed’ or shelved many important projects to improve public transportation services. Because of this lack of attention and lack of effort, KTM is having trouble maintaining a ‘state-of-good-repair’ for its intercity, freight, and Komuter divisions.

Furthermore, while the government may have woken up to public transportation as a solution, they have woken up too late. The rail network in the Klang Valley is inadequate and incomplete, without enough carriages to support passenger demand.

The bus services are still poorly managed and falling apart and many bus operators are being forced out of business.

Also, look at the proposed new rail lines which are being designed without public consultation. Like the existing services, the new rapid transit lines will probably have a ‘light’ passenger capacity with ‘heavy’ engineering and construction costs.

It is also interesting to note that since Ong Tee Keat became transport minister, I have yet to see him attend any photo opportunities or events at any railway station.

He has visited the RapidKL, Scomi and KTM facilities but has he ever gone to the KL Sentral or Masjid Jamek stations to witness the situation for himself?

Of course, the transport ministry is only once agency responsible for public transportation in Malaysia - and that, of course, is the real source of problems within public transportation - and fixing these problems will require more than an ‘overnight solution’.