Community engagement and public awareness on safe city program based on road safety initiatives

Abstract

The Ministry of Housing and Local Government (KPKT) initiated Safe City Program in August 2004 as a move towards creating a safe communities and environment in urban areas to improve public quality of life. It served as a crime prevention measure in ensuring the crime rate in the city can be reduced and enables the residents to live, comfortably and safely without fear. To implement this program, each municipal council's department of town and country planning lead the effort by designing a safe environment and reduce the chance to commit crimes. This study aims to evaluate public awareness of safe city program implementation in Johor Bahru district. Community engagement is important to make sure local community fully aware about safe city program and help in making the program successful. To determine the level of awareness, 80 questionnaires were distributed to public community around affected areas. The data were then analysed using spread sheet program and SPSS. Result has shown that public awareness is closely related with physical visibility for each safe city initiatives. The significant of the study is to provide strategy to increase public awareness for the continuation of safe city program in the future.