Residents’ transportation mode preferences in Transit Oriented Area: A case study of Mentari Court, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

Abstract

Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is often linked to the compact, green, mixed use and sustainable development.
It encourages people to reduce the use of private vehicles. A TOD area consists of various types of land uses i.e.
residential, commercial, public facilities and employment area. A transit station within the walking distance to
houses centres the TOD area. Conceptually, it is attracting people to use public transport in making a trip. However,
the actual level of acceptance by residents on the public transport services within the TOD area is not being clearly
examined in Malaysia. As a TOD area, Mentari Court, still jams out with private car as large numbers of residents
in the study area were still using private cars for their daily working trip purposes. This study examined the
residents’ transportation mode preferences in the transit oriented (TOD) area of Mentari Court Apartment, Sunway
City, Petaling Jaya. The findings from the field study of 99 respondents of the Mentari Court residents revealed that
most of the respondents chose public transport for leisure trip and walking for the daily working trip to the short
distance between their apartment and work place. However, incomplete route of public transport network, poor
connectivity and services, long journey, and fear of crime had discouraged some of the respondents to use public
transport. As a proposal, TOD should be implemented in a regional level instead of local level to increase the
integration and coverage of transit network.

Keywords: connectivity, public transport, ridership, safety, Transit Oriented Development (TOD), working trip