KL steps up bid to ease traffic jams

KL steps up bid to ease traffic jams

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysia has intensified its bid to encourage car-pooling with new advertisements which suggest ugly mobile urinals would hit the roads unless motorists in traffic- choked Kuala Lumpur comply with the campaign, a report said yesterday.

"The advertisements suggest that this unsightly objects might become necessary as traffic jams get worse," the New Straits Times daily said as authorities launched a new bid to get Malaysian drivers to car-pool after a failed attempt in 1993.

Commercials warning of the "consequences of refusing to share vehicles" were made by the advertising agency DDB Needham and will cost the government a further 2.7 million ringgit (US$1.08 million) after the 9.7 million ringgit spent on the campaign in the last two years.

Spurred by a booming economy, vehicle ownership in the Malaysian capital has been growing at an annual rate of 20 percent, with some half a million cars, 300,000 motorcycles and 20,000 buses and taxis entering the city daily, officials said.

Kuala Lumpur is ranked third after Bangkok and Jakarta -- two of Asia's most traffic-congested cities -- in terms of vehicle numbers.