WHEN former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad launched the first intelligent city in the heart of MSC Malaysia on July 8, 1999, witnessed by 25 of the world’s top ICT personalities, little did he know that 11 years down the road, Cyberjaya would turn out to be not so intelligent after all.
Is Cyberjaya an Intelligent City? It could have been the first truly intelligent city and a model city for other local councils to follow but Sepang Municipal Council (MPSp)had other ideas as far as parking is concerned.
Like many other cities, Cyberjaya is not experiencing problems with traffic. Instead, it is facing a problem of motorists who park by the roadside. What they have failed to do is to raise public awareness on the number of free parking areas available.
Yet they have decided instead to follow in the footsteps of other unplanned cities — by introducing metered parking along certain designated roads and getting into an unpleasant situation that is difficult to get out of in the future.
The recent introduction of the metered parking system by operators Suasa Efektif Sdn Bhd in May, drew some flak from the local working population who feel that the beauty of the cityscape has been compromised with this move.
The main development thrust is to provide a quantum leap for Cyberjaya to become a leading multimedia hub attracting world-class media and IT companies, which means the development of modern integrated infrastructure and IT-system, and the provision of an effective and efficient public transport system.
While it can be said that there is an effective and efficient public transport system, MPSp could have capitalised on it by imposing a strict parking system where motorists are required to park only at designated parking venues and not bending its rules to allow legal roadside parking.
Even Cyberview Sdn Bhd, the landowners of Cyberjaya were in the dark about this new parking system introduced in May this year and the parking problems could have been better managed if both parties had discussed before it was implemented.
After all, there are enough parking bays in Cyberjaya and there was absolutely no reason for metered parking.
MPSp could take a cue from Bratislava, the capital of Slovak Republic. With a population of about 430,000, it is like many other cities, experiencing problems with parking but has managed to solve them by increasing public parking areas.
The city (Bratislava), the largest city in Slovakia Republic has introduced a parking guidance system that directs drivers to the free parking spaces.
The city has installed signs that lead motorists to the free-parking bays available so that they do not have to go around in circles looking for a place to park.
For those who are in hurry for an appointment or rushing for work, the system “thinks ahead” that is it takes into account the time it takes to get to the indicated parking spaces.
The parking guidance system collects data on free parking spaces available in the various parking facilities and based on the data obtained in this way, the system then modifies the information on the signs to direct drivers to free parking spaces.
MPSp should not have a problem of employing this parking guidance system for Cyberjaya, as after all it is an intelligent city and therefore it deserves nothing less.
There are 1,149 free parking bays at the MSC Innovation Centre, Cyberpark, Sports Arena and Cyberview and yet motorists do not want to use the facilities. Suasa Efektif (M) Sdn Bhd stepped in and damaged the city landscape by implementing a Pay & Display system with 238 parking bays and 10 parking machines along designated roads - Jalan Teknokrat 3 to Jalan Teknokrat 6.
So, unless some improvement is done with the parking system in Cyberjaya, MPSp must be prepared to hear more criticisms especially with foreign nationals who have been working here for years, some of whom have commented in the past that there is no proper planning and the city has lost its uniqueness.
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