KTB: We cannot subsidise Negri services any more

STAR, 18 November 2011

SEREMBAN: Konsortium Transna­sional Bhd (KTB), the country’s largest bus operator, stopped its stage bus services in Negri Sembilan as its express bus operations could no longer subsidise them.

KTB executive director Tengku Hasmadi Tengku Hashim said the consortium, which owns 1,500 buses, had over the years been providing “social service” subsidised by its profitable express bus operations.

“But the Government’s move to issue express bus permits to many new players covering lucrative routes, particularly over the past five years, affected our revenue from express bus operations.

“Our group has been registering continued losses because our express bus operations were not making enough to subsidise our stage bus business.”

No more business as usual: A handful of people walking around the Terminal 1 bus station yesterday. KTB stopped its stage bus service in Negri Sembilan on Wednesday. — UU BAN / The Star

 

“Since the new operators are not obliged to provide stage bus services, they have not been badly affected like us,” he told The Star.

KTB has stopped servicing all but a few of its routes in the state, including the Seremban-Kuala Pilah-Bahau, Seremban-Port Dickson and Seremban-Kuala Lumpur expressways.

Tengku Hasmadi, who met Land Public Transport Commission officers yesterday, said he had written to the Kedah, Kelantan, Pahang, Selangor, Penang and Negri Sembilan governments early this year on the company’s predicament.

“We told them that we cannot continue with the stage bus service any more as our operating expenditure had increased significantly while the fares are controlled by the Government,” he said.