Impact of pandemic covid-19 towards public bus services in Johor Bahru: multiple case study

Abstract

Covid-19 pandemic is a serious problem faced by all countries throughout the world nowadays. As this infectious virus could spread via physical touch, most countries announced the lockdown or Movement Control Order (MCO) within their states to monitor and limiting activities/mobility that could make it worse. Malaysia is one of the countries that implemented this order. MCO has affected people’s lifestyle and its impact is more visible in the transport system especially bus services. Bus services are among essential services that provide accessibility to the people. In the past studies, research on Johor public transportation system are mainly focuses on the service quality of the bus and customer satisfaction level such as bus operating hours, waiting time, bus conditions and fares. Up to recently, there is no study conducted on impact of viruses towards bus services specifically in Johor Bahru. Therefore, to fill this gap, this research was conducted to study the impact of Covid-19 pandemic towards public transportation bus services in Johor Bahru. In short, this research analyses changes in bus services policy, innovation implementation, Travel preferences as well as safety and security in Johor Bahru city. Respondents from different categories such as bus operators, transport authorities, medical expert and public views were chosen to obtain different perspective points of view.