By Datuk Ts Dr. Hj Ramli Amir, former President of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Malaysia and Vice-President of CILT International for Southeast Asia
KOTA KINABALU: Malaysia’s public transport landscape offers a revealing paradox: at the very moment when ridership and service levels are improving, the financial figures paint a picture of deep and persistent losses.
Malaysia’s public transport system is improving in ridership and service quality, but financially it is structurally loss-making and depends on government subsidies by design, not because it “failed” as a business.
The Rapid Rail RM603 million deficit in 2025 is a clear example of this pattern rather than an outlier.[bernama]
To understand why this is not a sign of failure but a reflection of public values, it is useful to look briefly at the numbers. Rapid Rail, which runs six urban rail lines in the Kelang Valley, reported operating costs of about RM1.3 billion in 2025, with fare revenue covering only about half, resulting in a RM603 million deficit. Fares have not been raised since 2015, and policy has been to keep ticket prices low to encourage public transport use, which naturally caps revenue growth relative to cost inflation and maintenance needs.[bernama]
These figures exist alongside positive developments in usage and reliability. Prasarana’s rail and bus network recorded an average daily ridership of around 1.31 million passengers in 2025, up about 11% from 2024, and hit a record 1.63 million trips on 31 December 2025.
Rail disruptions have reportedly fallen by more than half compared with 2024, which the Transport Ministry links to higher spending on maintenance and operations, again increasing costs faster than fare income.[bernama]
At this point, the central question almost asks itself: what is public transport meant to be? If it is judged purely as a profit-seeking enterprise, these deficits appear to be a chronic problem.
But if public transport is treated as a service grounded in social responsibility, then the deficits are better read as part of the cost of upholding certain public values: accessibility, equity, environmental sustainability and urban livability.
Malaysia’s policy choices regarding subsidies clearly point in this second direction.[bernama]
The federal government explicitly treats public transport as a public service and has pledged to continue subsidies for buses, rail, and even rural air services, so operators can maintain low fares and coverage, including schemes like the My50 pass and stage bus funds.
At the state level, Penang’s Mutiara Pass makes Rapid Penang buses effectively free for users, funded by the state budget, illustrating how policy choices deliberately trade operator profits for wider social benefits and a shift away from private-car dependence.[bernama]
This willingness to underwrite losses reflects a recognition that mobility is not just a commodity but a precondition for participating in modern life.
The ability to travel to work, school, hospitals, and public spaces should not depend on owning a car or paying commercial fares. If only those who can pay full cost are served, then public transport ceases to be “public” in any meaningful sense and becomes a niche product for those in dense city cores. Subsidies, in that light, are a way of redistributing opportunity: tax revenue gathered from the wider economy is recycled into affordable movement for millions of people.[bernama]
The structural economics of rail make this logic even clearer. Capital costs for rail (MRT, LRT, doubletracking) are almost entirely governmentfunded, with entities like MRT Corp accumulating large accounting losses because the projects are not intended to be fully repaid through fares. The national objective is to raise public transport modal share to around 40% by 2030, especially in Greater Kuala Lumpur, which practically requires keeping fares low and extending coverage, both of which worsen operators’ standalone financials without subsidies.[bernama]
Pursuing that 40% target is not just about hitting a number on a chart. It is, at heart, about reshaping cities and daily life: fewer cars on the road, less congestion, lower emissions, and more public space freed from parking and road widening. Those benefits, however, do not fall neatly onto the operator’s balance sheet. When a bus or train removes 30 cars from a highway, the resulting time savings and pollution reductions accrue to society at large, not to the transport company’s profit column. Expecting the operator’s accounts to “prove” the value of public transport, therefore, misses most of what makes it valuable.[bernama]
On strict commercial terms, most Malaysian public transport operators, especially urban rail, are lossmaking and would not be viable without ongoing government support. But that is precisely the point: public transport is not supposed to stand alone as a profitable corporation. It is an integral part of the social and economic infrastructure that allows the broader economy to function. From a policy and societal perspective, these systems function more like essential infrastructure: government accepts operating deficits in exchange for reduced congestion, lower household transport costs, improved air quality and more equitable access, so the “loss” is better seen as a recurring public investment rather than a business failure.[bernama]
If this is the picture in Kuala Lumpur, Sabah reveals another side of the same social responsibility. While the Kelang Valley debates overcrowding on trains and finetuning service frequencies, many Sabahans still struggle with the basics of public transport: buses that come on time, routes that connect residential areas to jobs, and infrastructure that allows passengers to wait and board safely.
In Kota Kinabalu and surrounding districts such as Putatan, Penampang, and Tuaran, the dominant reality is not rail deficits but a reliance on ageing buses, minibuses, and informal services, with no urban rail network and only a single, limited railway line along the west coast.themalaysianreserve+1
When public transport is poor, mobility becomes a privilege instead of a right. Those without cars face long, uncertain waits, higher time costs, and often unsafe roadside conditions just to commute to work or school. For lower-income households, especially in a state with wide rural-urban gaps, this erodes exactly the social objectives that justify subsidised public transport: equal access to jobs, education, healthcare and markets. The “loss” here is not primarily financial; it is measured in hours of life spent in traffic, opportunities forgone and the quiet pressure to purchase a car simply to remain employable.[themalaysianreserve]
In this sense, Sabah sharpens the moral argument behind treating public transport as a social responsibility. If the federal and state governments are willing to absorb hundreds of millions in losses to keep rail and bus services affordable in Kuala Lumpur, the same commitment ought to translate into catching up on decades of underinvestment in Sabah’s public transport. Proposals for Bus Rapid Transit in Kota Kinabalu and broader upgrades to rail and road-based public transport cannot be seen merely as economic catalysts; they are also instruments of justice, closing the gap between a capital city with record rail ridership and a state capital still dependent on unreliable, overcrowded buses.[themalaysianreserve]
Seen from this angle, the language of “losses” acquires a very different meaning. In Kuala Lumpur, the state “loses” money so that millions can move affordably and reliably each day. In Sabah, the absence or weakness of such systems means the losses fall on ordinary people instead: in fuel and maintenance for private vehicles they feel compelled to buy, in higher living costs, and in the wear and tear of long, unpredictable journeys. If public transport is to be a genuine social responsibility rather than a slogan, that responsibility must encompass both sustaining mature systems in the Klang Valley and building dignified, modern public transport in Sabah and other lagging regions.[themalaysianreserve]
The real debate, therefore, should not be whether Malaysian public transport “loses money,” but who bears the cost of mobility and how fairly that burden is shared among government, operators, and citizens across different parts of the country. Transparent subsidies, targeted fare policies and a deliberate effort to redress regional imbalances can turn operating deficits into visible gains in quality of life.
When framed this way, the deficits in Kuala Lumpur and the deficits of service in Sabah are two sides of the same coin: both remind us that moving a nation is not about running a profitable business, but about honouring a duty to ensure that movement itself is not a privilege reserved for those who can afford a car.[themalaysianreserve]
