KUALA LUMPUR, June 19 (Bernama) -- Vehicles registered in the first quarter of this year rose by 21,769 or 10 per cent to 238,934 over the January-March period last year.

The Statistics Department, giving the breakdown in its May bulletin, said 117,457 cars were registered by the Road Transport Department in January-March this year compared to 103,373 for the same period last year, followed by 108,571 motorcycles against 101,148 last year.

A total of 932,363 vehicles were registered last year, with cars accounting for 472,116, followed by motorcycles (397,997), buses (1,290), taxis and hired cars (9,543), goods vehicles (33,169) and other vehicles (18,268).

The bulletin also said the number of passengers who used Putra-LRT, Star-LRT and KTM Komuter increased last year compared to the previous year.

Last year, 57,729,971 passengers rode the Putra-LRT, 43,353,471 travelled on Star-LRT and 27,381,423 on KTM Komuter compared to 56,527,971, 39,084,943 and 24,645,493 respectively in 2003.

For January this year, 5,036,956 passengers used Putra-LRT compared to 4,653,587 passengers who used the service in January last year; 3,793,610 the Star-LRT against 3,428,478 in 2004; and 2,520,228 the KTM Komuter against 2,316,880 in 2004.

As for Internet dial-up subcriptions, there was a 5.6 per cent growth from 2.881 million subcribers in 2003 to 3.293 million in 2004 while the estimated number of Internet users increased from 9.444 million users in 2003 to 9.879 million in 2004.

The number of broadband subscriptions more than doubled from 110,406 subscribers in 2003 to 252,501 in 2004.

The number of cellular phone users increased from 11.124 million users in 2003 to 14.455 million the next year.

However, fixed telephone lines provided to residential property declined from 3.194 million subscribers in 2003 to 2.938 million in 2004.

The number of public pay phones also went down from 114,000 in 2003 to 105,000 in 2004.


Wow, that means more traffic jams, more accidents, more congested super-mini Putra-LRT train (ironic, isn't it, KTM is longer and covers more area but has the least number of passengers), more abuse on public transports as people entertain themselves during jams, more slower Mp3 downloads, more insults (and divorces) thru SMS-es. It goes to show how more and more dependant we are on cars, phones, the LRT and the Internet, when the power goes out, Presto! Total chaos!

But hey, Look on the bright side, now we hav lesser public phone abuses and easier for us to register for home phone numbers as more people opt for hand phones.... sheesh....