2009/07/08
By : MOHD PETER DAVIS, Bandar Baru Bangi

I AGREE with Gursharan Singh's article ("A good time for that rail project" -- NST, July 3) that now is the best time to upgrade Malaysia's railway system.

In 1957, the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore express train service took seven hours 35 minutes; today it takes seven hours. The journey by car or express bus can be completed in four hours without traffic jams.

However, traffic jams are a way of life in the Klang Valley and other major urban areas. It is twice as fast for my daughter and her fellow students to walk the few kilometres from their apartments to their colleges in Subang Jaya, but this is not so easily done without a dedicated pedestrian path.

My independent research reveals a road death rate per million population that is three to four times higher in Malaysia than in Australia, Japan or Britain. The heavy reliance on motorcycles in Malaysia must be the main reason for this. Worldwide, motorcycles are inherently unsafe, with a death toll of 117 per billion kilometres travelled compared with 12 for cars and only one for planes and trains. Roads worldwide have been transformed into death-traps. With 30 million road deaths in the 20th century, the transition to fast and safe public transport, affordable for the entire population, is long, long overdue.

The short distances between urban centres in peninsular Malaysia makes high speed intercity trains a far better choice than planes, especially with airports a long way away from city centres.

Scientists and engineers internationally have done their job. Suitable public transport technology is available and lacks only the political will to implement.

Japan's bullet trains travelling at 210kph have been operating successfully and profitably for 45 years. This is the fast rail system proposed for the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore route by the YTL group. However, the much better Maglev technology, capable of 480kph has been sitting on the shelf for decades. Only China has taken the plunge with this German technology. For the past five years commercial Maglev trains have been amazing travellers with the four-minute trip from Shanghai airport to the city centre. China is extending the Maglev line to Hagzhou City, which by next year is scheduled to cut the 175km journey to 30 minutes. Japan has announced it will replace its bullet trains with Maglev trains travelling more than twice the speed.

Clearly, Malaysia should not be the last country to use the 1960s bullet-train technology, but should instead leapfrog to a Maglev railway network covering the whole peninsula.

I think the Maglev system most suitable for Malaysia is the American Maglev 2000. The modular concrete Maglev track, elevated above existing railway lines and alongside highways, can move both the intercity Maglev passenger trains at 480kph and the larger Maglev container trains at 300kph. This gets several cars and trucks off the roads. (Maglev photos and diagrams can be viewed on my website, www.mohdpeterdavis.com)

Travel time for passengers from Kuala Lumpur to Seremban will be reduced to 12 minutes, 60 minutes to JB or Butterworth, KL to Kuantan will take 40 minutes, Kuala Terengganu 70 minutes and Kota Baru 100 minutes. Suburban feeder Maglev trains will quickly get people close to their workplace.

This will be a grand project, but it is no more difficult or expensive than building highways. Given cheap electricity that only nuclear power plants can supply, the low operating costs will make travelling by Maglev "flying on land" affordable for all Malaysians, children included.

A Malaysian Maglev railway network, achievable within 10 years, must therefore be seen as an essential component, along with nuclear energy, of a high-tech Vision 2020.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Wednesday/Letters/2601681/Article/index_html