Track intrusion poses danger, disrupts LRT service

Petaling Jaya, 28 January 2011:- RapidKL’s Kelana Jaya (KJ) LRT Line recorded a total of 138 track intrusion cases in 2010, with most cases involved passengers picking up their belongings which fell on the track and cases of people trespassing the track.
“Pasar Seni Station recorded the highest number of intrusion cases with 15 cases, followed by KL Sentral and Gombak (12 cases respectively),” said Director of Rail from Syarikat Prasarana Negara Berhad, Khairani Mohamed.
“Track intrusion poses a danger to the LRT users and caused disruption to the service,” he said in a statement issued here, today.
Khairani said there are people who went down and jumped onto the LRT track to pick up fallen belongings or purposely intruded the track. These actions not only caused danger to themselves but also to other passengers on board the train.
Khairani said track intrusion causes the Kelana Jaya LRT’s driverless automatic train to stop automatically as the Platform Intrusion Emergency Stop (PIES) is activated once anything more than 7kg landed on the track. Power will be automatically cut off which causes any train in the vicinity to stop immediately. Therefore, the service will be disrupted until safe condition is established when trains stranded on track. Passengers in the affected train may experience sudden stop while on board the train within the vicinity.
This year alone, 2 intrusion cases were reported at Kelana Jaya (KJ) LRT Line. The latest incident happened on 19 January, in which an intruder trespassed the track between Setiawangsa and Sri Rampai stations. PIES was activated automatically and the power was cut off immediately resulting two 4-car trains stranded between the stations. It had caused unnecessary service disruption for 20 minutes.
Khairani reminded that trespassing is a serious offense as not only it poses danger to other passengers and cause service disruption, but the intruder can also be charged. The company’s Auxiliary Police or Security Officers will arrest the offender and take him/her to the nearby police station for further action. Offenders could be charged under Section 62 Railway Act 1991 (Act 463): Penalty for trespassing;
“Any person who trespasses upon a railway or upon any railway premises shall be guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding five hundred ringgit and, if any such person refuses to leave the railway or railway premises on being requested to do so by any railway official, he shall be guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding one thousand ringgit, and may be immediately removed there from.”
Apart from putting up signages to warn passengers not to trespass the track, Prasarana has taken extra precautionary measures by installing fences at specific platforms to prevent such incidences.
Khairani advises passengers to take care of their belongings and to adhere to rules and regulations while waiting at station platforms. Passengers who needed help to pick up fallen belonging may request assistance from staff-on-duty and security personnel in which a qualified station staff will attend to the problem through proper procedures. They can also request assistance directly to the Operations Control Centre by using Passenger Assist Telephone (PAT) available at each platform.
Source: http://www.myrapid.com.my/news-events/media-releases/2011/track-intrusion-poses-danger-disrupts-lrt-service