LETTER | On Thursday evening, I was one of the thousands of commuters who were stranded when the MRT suffered technical issues. I was trapped in the train for 15 minutes at the Pasar Seni platform.

There were no announcements made in the train or platform until after 15 minutes. There were also no Rapid KL staff or auxiliary police officers at the platform to manage the crowd. It was chaotic and commuters in the trains were confused.

I understand delays can happen on and off. I was recently in Sydney, Australia, and was impressed by how the train officials there managed the crowd during a minor breakdown.

After one minute, there were already announcements made in the train, informing commuters about the delay and the estimated time for services to be resumed.

After two minutes, there were staff members at the platform, escorted by transit police officers, on crowd control duties. They were very professional and well organised.

After 10 minutes, service resumed. They made it so simple despite the glitch.

This is a far cry from how Rapid KL manages a crisis whenever there is a breakdown.

Why there were no announcements in trains or other LRT lines that are connected to the MRT? I had to tell my friend, who was on the LRT Kelana Jaya line, about the MRT breakdown so that he could take Grab instead. It puzzles me that commuters are expected to do RapidKL’s job.

At the Pasar Seni MRT platform, a kind commuter helped manage the crowd as people were pushing and the platform was overcrowded.

There were no Rapid KL staff at the platform and I saw foreign tourists looking traumatised.

Ten minutes later, when the trains started moving, there were several sudden brakes.

Why were there no announcement in the trains to warn people about the abnormal speed so people would be more alert and will hold handgrips? In Sydney, announcements were made in the trains for parents with young children to be aware and watch over their kids during the abnormal speed.

This is really frustrating as Rapid KL keeps repeating the same mistakes. I have previously given suggestions to Rapid KL and Land Public Transport Commission (Spad) on how to manage such crisis and even met with senior officials.

But sadly, till today, there has been no positive outcome. This is worrying as RapidKL shows no serious interest in the safety and comfort of paying commuters.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.