Malaysia urban rail operator rebounds from crisis after operational revamp

Prasarana eyes S’pore MRT’s reliability standard, after turnaround from multiple system failures and prolonged station closures

- Lu Wei Hoong

Multiple system failures, 16 station closures for five consecutive days, frustrated passengers — these were the challenges Prasarana Malaysia faced during the suspension of service to nearly half the stations on the popular Kelana Jaya Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line in November 2022.

But nearly three years on, rail reliability across the urban Klang Valley region's five service lines - Kelana Jaya LRT, Ampang LRT, Kajang MRT, Putrajaya MRT and the KL Monorail - has shown steady improvement.

Under the rail industry’s mean kilometres between failure (MKBF) standard - which captures the distance a train travels before experiencing a delay or breakdown lasting more than five minutes — urban public transport operator Prasarana achieved 0.54 million MKBF with 24 disruptions from January to August 2025.

This was a significant improvement from 0.33 million MKBF and 71 disruptions in full-year 2024, and 0.16 million MKBF with 118 disruptions in full-year 2023.

Singapore’s MRT has benchmarked this at a minimum of 1 million MKBF annually - a standard that the government-linked Prasarana aims to achieve by the second quarter of 2026.

Prasarana president and group chief executive officer Amir Hamdan attributed the improved performance to increased investments, more manpower and a proactive maintenance approach.

“Based on past failures and analysis, we now replace the Kajang MRT wheels after 400,000km instead of the original 800,000km. Similarly, monorail bearings, originally designed to last three years, are now replaced every 1/4 years to ensure smooth operations,” he told The Straits Times on Sept 30.

Mr Amir said a fourfold increase in the maintenance budget and a 47 per cent rise in Prasarana Rail team manpower in 2025 compared with 2023 were crucial for improving rail service reliability.