KUALA LUMPUR: Maintenance or repair of infrastructure and roads should be implemented in an integrated manner by agencies involved to overcome the issue of congestion due to road closure.

Coordinated planning and implementation will not only save time, but also facilitates all parties, the Deputy Dean (Research & Innovation) of the Faculty of Built Environment and Surveying, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Professor Dr Muhammad Zaly Shah.

He said currently, every agency involved in road maintenance has its own planning and time of implementation.

‘’They know that the use of the road also involved other service providers, like water, sewerage and installation of electric cables, and all these agencies have different plans and time to do their jobs. There is no coordination and we see work on the affected road is never completed.

“In the end, it is the road users who have to bear the inconvenience of travelling,” he told Bernama TV.

He said the matter should be looked into seriously and expressed the need for coordination among all the agencies involved.

Last Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was reported as saying that road closures due to roadworks and construction need to be reduced, with the affected roads to be reopened as an immediate measure to overcome traffic congestion.

He said road closures had been identified as one of the contributing factors to traffic congestion and that there will be coordination for areas affected by road works or construction of buildings or other infrastructure to overcome the problem. - Bernama