On The Train, Nov 28, 2005

I could be wrong but if I am not mistaken there are a new sets of people taking the train now. I realized this on the way to work today. Most of them of the younger generation and to me this is a good sign. In the wake of all the nasty news about ‘Mat Rempet’, dare devil motorcycle riders, and the perennial problem with traffic congestion I am not just glad but really happy. I hope they stay as the train commuters the whole of their working lives. My question is, is KTMB going to take this as an opportunity or a challenge to help solve the problems? On the way home last week I chanced on Rentas, the KTM Komuter official bulletin, and found out they actually celebrated their 10 years in service last August. By the look of it they are really proud of that achievement. I agree they should and they should know as well that they could have done better and should be doing better instead of the, still, poor stakeholder relationship. As a stakeholder I constantly being subjected to delays and worse still kept in the dark of delays. I would want to suggest to them to randomly pick several groups of commuters and do a facilitated story extraction workshop. The stories or narratives could be then deciphered to find out issues or ideas on how to improve the service. Also, KTMB could take an anthropological approach to research and understand the real situation in the workplace.