Solving an issue by the way it presents itself is too mainstream.

Since I've started commuting to work by public transport, I've noticed how bad the system is here in Malaysia. I've wanted to write this for quite a while now, but arriving home late after standing for several hours a day in total, just waiting, I get too exhausted to write. I just slump into bed and wait for my bed time.

So, this is the problem with the trains in Malaysia. They never run on schedule, meaning, during peak hours, the crowd would have built up in every station and before the train arrives in KL Sentral, it is packed. Malaysia is not Scotland, so people push to get into the train. It took me about 2 days of being polite and missing trains on both days before I've learnt to push like my life depended on it. In all the pushing people do, clothes and bags belonging to a person will end up in different places. It is that bad.

I've made a simple Ishikawa diagram to illustrate the problem: 

We have trains breaking down which means they need to be changed to brand new, working trains. Next, punctuality seems like an issue of management. To me, it seems like training management and getting new train sets should solve the problem.

However, we've gone around solving the problem in a different light. Because of the crowd, which left no space for breathing, brought around certain indecent issues, we decided to separate the crowds into male and female coaches. Indecent issue - solved. Crowd issue - still there.

We got new 6 coach trains with a capacity of 1000 people (it was 3 coach trains before with a capacity of 400 people). It was supposed to solve the problem of people waiting for long duration for train. But trains are still late. When a train is supposed to arrive at 6.36pm, it never arrives at 6.36pm. I will be okay if it arrives at 6.37pm, but it doesn't either. Yesterday, it arrived after 7pm. Punctuality - not solved. Crowd issue - still there.

If only we got working trains and made management more efficient, it would have been like this: punctuality - solved, crowd - no more, people - happy.

But no, we can't do that because solving an issue by the way it presents itself is too mainstream.