Planning of National Transport Infrastructure
In the Islamic Countries
74
 Political and legislation: A national transport policy and a national transport master plan
do not exist in Malaysia. As Malaysia desires to move up level to a more policy driven and
spatial approach to transport planning in order to realize the government’s vision, a
national transport policy is currently being drafted to address the current challenge in
which the sectoral transport plans do not contribute towards a common goal due to
absence of an overarching policy direction.
The fact that the 11MP 2016-2020 “acts” as a national transport master plan, while this is
a 5-year development plan, a specific attention to national transport infrastructure is rather
limited. This issue is however being addressed as a national land transport master plan is
currently being developed.
 Institutional and organizational: A close collaboration among central Ministries’
agencies and implementing agencies and a strong partnership between public and private
sectors.
 Technical: The strongest aspect of the NTI plans of Malaysia is that they are developed
based on an outcome-oriented approach that drives concerted performance measurement
efforts at national and local levels. They also reflect a strong integration between land use
planning and multi-modal transport. The NTI plans also pay attention to the development
of non-motorised transport modes.
 Procedural and financing: Malaysia’s NTI plan is currently not policy driven, but it will
be, following the upcoming national transport policy, which can serve as a best practice
example for other OIC countries. Public consultation is enforced by a legal basis, which also
serves a guiding principle for an adequate public consultation process. PPP has been
adopted successfully in Malaysia and became a key success factor of the country’s transport
infrastructure projects.
 Content of NTI Plan: The NTI plan of Malaysia is outcome based, such as enhancing
connectivity across transport modes and regions, and improving safety, efficiency and
service levels of transport operations. The plan also gives a high attention to sustainability
and resilience.
 Data Collection: Ministries and agencies collect their own data and have their own
databases and these are not fully integrated at the national level. This issue is however
addressed by the 11MP that suggested that a one-stop centre will be established to provide
access and linkage to all data in the nation.
 Monitoring and Evaluation: Malaysia is a good example when it comes to a monitoring
system that is driven by a project cycle management. The 11MP is monitored on a yearly
basis by the EPU, who also conducts a mid-term after two years of implementation. The
implementation of the NLPTMP is monitored by SPAD who also conducts reviews at 10-
year intervals.
These findings are similar to the questionnaire result shown by the following radar chart, which
shows that Malaysia scores (very) high in all of the following NTI planning aspects.