Ever feel like you’ve been spending too much time idling on the road, waiting for the traffic light to turn green or for the cars in front to move faster? Apparently, a survey conducted by GlobalWebIndex for Ford revealed Malaysians are spending too much time in traffic jams in 2015 than in 2014.
Out of the 1,050 respondents, 55 percent of them said they spent more time stuck in traffic jams and complained their commute to work was the worst part of the day. That is not surprising, seeing as how our roads can’t cope with the constantly increasing number of private vehicles, no thanks to the lack of an efficient public transport system.
The floating fuel prices and the increase of toll fares last year has added to the pressure, with 75 percent of Malaysian respondents complaining about the increasing cost of commuting. Malaysia was ranked second behind Hong Kong on that matter, though.
A total of 12,619 consumers were surveyed across 12 markets, namely Australia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
While the above results seem depressing, the soon-to-be-completed MRT and LRT infrastructure should alleviate some of these burdens. However, Malaysians have long been accustomed to relying on private transportation for decades, so it will take some time before we see a shift in the preference for using public transportation system, just like our neighbours down south.
[Source: Bernama]
