Penang’s First LRT Project

Transforming Penang’s public transportation system with the muchanticipated Bayan Lepas LRT

There is a saying among locals that if you can drive in Penang, you can drive anywhere in the world.

This remark is often used to indirectly make fun of Penang drivers and their driving habits, but the driving conditions in the state have indeed put driving skills and motorists’ patience to the test in recent years, mainly during morning and evening rush hours and holiday seasons.

Over the last decade, driving in Penang, the second smallest state in Malaysia with a land area of 1,048 sq km, has become increasingly challenging due to worsening traffic. The state has more registered vehicles than residents and vehicles from out-ofstate enter Penang daily for work, business and pleasure.

According to the Transport Ministry of Malaysia, Penang had 2.77 million registered vehicles in 2020, up from 2.74 million in 2019. This positioned Penang as the fourth state with the most registered vehicles in the country after Kuala Lumpur, Johor, and Selangor, despite having a population of just 1.7 million.

In June this year, Penang police also reported that traffic volume on the Penang Bridge and Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Bridge increased by 15.9% from 2.8 million in May 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, to 3.1 million vehicles in May 2022.

The high traffic volume in Penang, mainly on the island, reflects Penang’s strength as one of Malaysia’s leading states in manufacturing and services, especially in the electrical and electronic (E&E) and tourism sectors.

Station Concourse at LRT4 – Artist’s Impression

Penang’s first LRT line

In order to address Penang’s worsening traffic woes and to boost and maintain the state’s productivity as a manufacturing powerhouse, the state government therefore introduced the ambitious multimodal Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP) in 2015. A priority component in the plan is the Bayan Lepas Light Rail Transit (BLLRT).

As Penang Island’s first modern-day rail line, the proposed BL LRT will span 26.8km, linking George Town and the upcoming Penang South Islands (PSI) development off the island’s southern coast. The alignment and its 23 stations will be strategically located to cover major must-go areas and landmarks such as the state government’s administrative offices in KOMTAR, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), the SPICE Arena, the Bayan Lepas Free Industrial Zone (FIZ), the Penang International Airport and PSI.

It is estimated that a trip from KOMTAR to the airport in Bayan Lepas will take 37 minutes, and the LRT service will be at a frequency of four minutes.

To avoid disrupting traffic on existing roads, the entire BLLRT alignment and its stations will be elevated.

The LRT service will also be complimented and supported by a feeder service that operates within a 3km radius from every LRT station, addressing the first- and last-mile problem.

To date, the BL LRT component has received partial approval for its Phase One alignment from KOMTAR to Bayan Lepas. Full approval from the Malaysian Transport Ministry is pending the approval of its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report for Phase Two, involving the LRT depot, which will be built on the proposed PSI development.

Changing mindsets, improved awareness

The introduction of the BL LRT has marked a shift in the mindset for many Penangites. In the past, many preferred using their own vehicles to get around rather than using public transport such as buses or taxis. Some considered the public transport service

to be inconvenient, slow, and unpredictable. But times have changed. When the BLLRT proposal was presented to the people in a three-month mandatory public inspection in 2019, the LRT received a high approval rate of 97.7%.

Even though the implementation of the LRT has seen delays due to unforeseen circumstances including the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the people’s support for the BLLRT has not waned.

The state government has been organising weekend PTMP roadshows since May this year to raise the people’s awareness of efforts and strategies to alleviate Penang’s traffic congestion problem, including building new roads and introducing the LRT line.

People attending the roadshows are most interested in the BL LRT. Most questions about the PTMP are about the LRT, namely when the construction will begin, when the service will start operation and when the service can be extended to other parts of Penang, such as mainland Penang.

The state government also received a similar positive response for the BL LRT, which generated a lot of interest from rail industry players and other participants at the Rail Solutions Asia 2022 exhibition in Kuala Lumpur in June.

Penangites and visitors to Penang are now more knowledgeable and have a higher awareness of the importance of using public transportation for their daily commute to work and for leisure. Most have used urban rail network services in Kuala Lumpur and other major cities around the world and appreciate the convenience and economy of using public rail transportation.

Many are now saying that other major Malaysian cities, apart from the Klang Valley, also need to have their own LRT or mass rapid transit system to provide more efficient public transport services to reduce dependency on private vehicles.

Many Malaysians today also see the rationale in reducing their reliance on private vehicles for the good of the environment. Using public transportation like the LRT, which runs on electricity, will help national and international efforts to reduce carbon emissions to face climate change. These are all positive indications that people are ready to shift to using public transportation and leave their cars at home in the future.

The 2019 mandatory Bayan Lepas LRT public inspection drew 97.7% support from respondents.

Request for proposal

its pre-qualification stage to shortlist qualified and experienced companies to participate in the bidding process.

The pre-qualification exercise is to identify and pre-qualify suitable works package contractors to participate in the RFP process, where the companies will submit proposals on engineering, procurement, construction, testing and commissioning of the LRT’s viaducts, stations, depot, system, and other associated works, as well as the funding, operation and maintenance of the LRT system.

For the pre-qualification stage, interested companies are to submit their company profile, details on their key personnel, past and current projects, the contractual relationship of members in their respective consortiums or joint ventures, financial information, funding model, proposed implementation plan and other supporting documents.

Since the pre-qualification stage started on July 21, the Penang Infrastructure Corporation (PIC) has received encouraging responses from more than 40 companies from Malaysia and abroad. The response was so good that more than 10 international companies, including rolling stock makers, requested more time to submit the necessary documents and to form joint ventures with local partners to increase their chances of winning the bid to build the LRT.

Instead of ending the pre-qualification stage as initially planned on August 24, the Penang government considered the international companies’ request and extended the registration deadline from August 8 to August 19 and the document submission deadline to October 7 to allow more interested companies to submit their documents.

If all goes well, the RFP process will be announced by the end of 2022 and construction can begin next year, subject to the federal authorities’ approval.

Details on the BL LRT and the PTMP are available on penanginfra.com.