Transport Minister Anthony Loke has encouraged local developers to use publicly available transport data to build navigation applications, following the government’s ban on civil servants using Waze for official duties. Speaking after launching Phase Three of the Masjid Jamek LRT station upgrading project in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, Loke said the Transport Ministry had adopted an open-data policy several years ago to encourage the development of applications that make public transport more accessible to commuters.
“Public transport data has been open for several years,” he said. Loke was responding to questions about whether the ministry would support the local application ecosystem following the government’s push for Malaysians to consider locally developed navigation alternatives to Waze.
