KUALA LUMPUR: The cause of the disruption to the Kelana Jaya Light Rail Transit (LRT) line's Automatic Train Control (ATC) has yet to be identified.
Prasarana's chief executive officer Mohd Azharuddin Mat Sah said there was a loss of signal between the operation centres and trains, and this prevented the trains from moving automatically between the Kelana Jaya and Ampang Park LRT stations.
"This is a serious problem which has never happened before.
"Rapid Rail is being assisted by a special team from the Thales Group Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) from Toronto, Canada that is expected to arrive tomorrow to look for a short- and long-term solution to this.
"This encompasses tests of the existing equipment and software. Hence, we are looking at every angle and we need these experts to identify the issue to keep our passengers safe," he told a press conference at the Lembah Subang Rapid Rail depot, here today.
Yesterday, RapidKL announced that the LRT services between the Kelana Jaya and Ampang Jaya stations were halted after the automatic train control (ATC) system malfunction was detected at 3.03pm.
It also announced that it has suspended its LRT operations involving 16 stations starting today, Nov 9 until Nov 15.
Among the LRT stations involved include Kelana Jaya; Taman Bahagia; Taman Paramount; Asia Jaya; Taman Jaya; Universiti; Kerinchi; Bangsar; Abdullah Hukum; KL Sentral; Pasar Seni; Masjid Jamek; Dang Wangi; Kampung Baru; KLCC; and Ampang Park.
Meanwhile, Azharuddin added that the group had detected a malfunction on its ATC system last Saturday (Nov 5), however, the solution provided was not able to address the issue.
"The engineering team had come out with a solution when the malfunction was detected, but the solution could only last us for two days.
"This is why we halted the services for a period of seven days for passengers' safety purposes," he said, adding that the group was also looking into compensating a total of 200,000 affected passengers.
Following the service disruption, he added that RapidKL has also extended 73 free feeder bus services at five LRT stations, including Ara Damansara to Pasar Seni; Ara Damansara to Kelana Jaya; Kelana Jaya to Pasar Seni; Pasar Seni to Masjid Jamek; and Masjid Jamek to Dato' Keramat.
"With this, passengers are able to utilise the free feeder bus services or use other methods of public transport to get to their destinations.
"Passengers could also track busses services and locations from RapidKL social media channels, as well as the PULSE application.
"We will (also) do our best to fix the issue and we apologise for the inconvenience that it had caused our passengers."
At the same time, other stations would operate as normal starting at 6am, but would end one hour early at 11pm.