Exploratory study of accessibility to public bus transport by disabled people in Klang Valley : A case study in RapidKL Bus Services

• Main Author: Azliza, Saad
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: HV Social Pathology. Social and Public Welfare
• Online Access: https://etd.uum.edu.my/5151/1/s809116.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/5151/2/s809116_abstract.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/5151/

Klang Valley is currently has an estimated population of 6,471,028 with an area of 2804.5 square kilometers only. Taking into the account on the estimation made by the World Health Organisation (WHO), 15% of the world's populations are people with some form of disability. Hence the number of disabled people around Kelang Valley is estimated about 970,000. However, statistics released by the Jabatan Pembangunan Orang Kurang Upaya, until May 2012 there were only 87.927 people registered disabled in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur. Numbers of private cars in the Klang Valley until May 2012 were estimated at 5,971,259 units. This gives us the impression that the situation in the Klang Valley is quite crowded with people and vehicles, particularly private vehicles. RapidKL is one of the bus operators that were responsible to provide public bus services in the Klang Valley. In line with the government's goals to improve public transport in the Klang Valley to be the people's choice of transport, RapidKL has taken the initiative to provide disabled-friendly public buses. This began with the purchase of 100 units of disabled-friendly buses in 2007 which started the operations in June of the same year. On top of that, RapidKL also had repair the bus stop and related infrastructure facilities of the public bus system in the main route to be accessible by disabled people (Bernama, 2007). Even so, there are still complaints from disabled people that the facilities provided to them has not disabled-friendly. They still faced the difficulties to access to public bus services and others public places. This study was done to see to which extent the disabled people are able to access to the RapidKL pulic bus services and trying to identify the barriers faced by them. This study uses qualitative method and total sample randomly selected interviewed was 47 respondents. The interview then has been transcribed word by word for the analysis purposes. The results showed that all respondents have access to RapidKL public bus services but with hardship. Apart from that, the results from this study are also shows that there are some barriers that they have to face when they are accessing to the public bus system. With the availability of Person with Disabilities Act 2008 and the drastic measures taken by the government to improve the level of access to public transport, it has become a stepping stone in providing a comprehensive accessibility to public bus services for disabled people