6 days ago
On-demand van service cheap but not speedy
MY ATTEMPT to ride Penang's Rapid On-Demand (ROD) van from Pulau Tikus to Cecil Street Market was a failure.
I was initially intrigued by Penang's latest first-mile-last-mile public transport service.
I gave it a try because the app showed the van service could pick me up right in front of my apartment and drop me at the market's food court entrance, about 4.7km away.
I've longed for the old-school hawker food there but haven't visited in over three years because of the difficulty in finding parking space there.
The service operates within zones, with overlap at the edges, meaning I would change vans at the zone boundaries to continue on towards Cecil Street Market.
My first stop was to be at Pangkor Road near Gleneagles Hospital, 1.6km away, but this took 30 minutes due to the roundabout route to pick up and drop off passengers.
When I arrived at Pangkor Road, it was already time for me to make my way back to work, so I didn't get to complete my journey to Cecil Street.
Using the app was a breeze, and the van arrived within six minutes.
It was also clean and air-conditioned, along with a friendly driver.
At RM1 for one ride, the pricing was tempting.
The Rapid Penang On-Demand service serves as a good way to travel within neighbourhoods. — CHAN BOON KAI/The Star
But as the saying goes: what's cheap and good isn't fast; what's fast and good isn't cheap.
If I had chosen to drive, the journey would have taken me three to five minutes while walking would have taken about 20 minutes.
But that short van ride at 10.30am on a Saturday took too long as the driver had to circle to drop off and pick up passengers.
During my ride, two passengers were dropped off and four others picked up along the way.
When I asked if people used the vans to get to work, the driver said yes, but advised against it.
'If your work requires you to arrive punctually, this service might not get you there on time because we drive around in circles within a small zone to pick up and drop off many passengers,' he explained.
The service, however, is great for short trips within neighbourhoods and I did notice a few passengers with bags of groceries getting picked up near Pulau Tikus market to go home.
Perhaps I was pushing it by trying to use it for a cross-town food run.
Penang island, now the country's second most densely populated place after Kuala Lumpur, is more congested than ever and any new public transport service is welcome here.
But my fantasy of paying RM2 to reach a cross-town food haven while skipping the parking hassle was wishful thinking.
Save time or save money; it was too much for me to expect to save both.
