Saturday, October 20, 2007

Reply from ERL -- Train model removed!

18th October 2007
Mr Lau Weng San
Chairman
PJ Action Team
Democratic Action Party

Dear Mr Lau,

KLIA EKSPRES & KLIA TRANSIT – KUALA LUMPUR TO KLIA
RE: ERL tidak prihatin terhadap orang cacat kelihatan

We refer to your press statement above and thank you for highlighting your concern. At first glance, the photo does seem to portray an inconsiderate act. But before a conclusion is determined, please allow us to take you through.

When Express Rail Link (ERL) undertook the construction of the Kuala Lumpur City Air Terminal (KL CAT) in KL Sentral, special care was given to cater to visually impaired passengers, such as tactile paths and braille letterings in lifts.

Yellow tactile paths were laid from outside the entrance of the Departure Hall, leading all the way down to the KLIA Ekspres departure platform. For arriving passengers, as soon as they step out of the train onto the arrival platform, the yellow tactile path leads all the way up to the Arrival Hall and thereafter, the exit out of KL CAT. Whilst this facility is in place, we have gone one step further. Standing instructions are given to staff on duty to assist visually impaired passengers with the slotting of tickets at all ticket gates for their entry or exit.

A point to note though, whilst such considerations are in place, there have been very few unaccompanied visually impaired passengers using our service since we started operations more than five years ago. We can only guess that their preferred mode of transport to/from KLIA is still the door-to-door transfers such as taxis, which are easier and more convenient for their needs.

Coming back to the display train model at the Arrival Hall, over and above the standing instructions on helping visually impaired passengers through the ticket gates, our porters and security staff have also been briefed to escort them all the way to their waiting vehicles during this period for the Merdeka display. We are sorry such internal arrangements are not apparent to others. For your kind information, as the Merdeka celebration period is over, the train model will be relocated back to its permanent display location by the end of this week.

We trust the above clarifies our position.

Thank you.

Yeow Wei-Wen
Vice President
Marketing, Sales & Customer Service

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