City Bus Characteristics : Ipoh- Tanjung Rambutan

This study evaluating public bus transportation operated along Ipoh - Tanjung
Rambutan route. Service evaluated in term of frequency, time and route. Collecting data
in identifying passengers and residents characteristics for demand level analysis. Data
collected by survey and observation at study area. Survey form distributed randomly to
passengers and residents. Characteristics extracted from survey organized into
presentable form for demand analysis use. Bus service provided evaluated by Urban Bus
Design. Actual data on site compared to results defined by Urban Bus Design. From the
survey done, 51% are below 25 years old using public bus for transportation purpose.
Most of them are students whose use public bus as mod of transportation from home to
school and vice versa. Majority of passenger (61%) are with low income below RM500
per month. They are combination of students and factory workers. By survey of
frequency on using bus per week, 39% of residents is not using bus at all and prefer to
use own transportation like cars and motorcycle. Performance of bus operations is
compare to Urban Bus Design method. As the results, number of buses provide for the
service is not adequate for current amount of passengers ride per hour. Four buses
provided but the service should provide seven buses to accommodate the passengers.
These causes produce long waiting time for passenger with 26 minutes. Few numbers of
bus stops within residential area make its more difficult for residents to use public bus.
From survey, 67% have to walk more than 5 minutes to reach the nearest bus stops. Ipoh
City Council (Majlis Bandaraya Ipoh) in their Ipoh Structure Plan (1998 - 2020)
promising Ipoh local in improving city public transportation by building infrastructure of
integration terminal center in Meru Jaya and South Chemor. Several recommendations
has been made for improvement of public bus Ipoh - Tanjung Rambutan routes.
Increasing number of bus stops and adding up one more bus for operations is some of the
recommendations.