Abd Rahim Md Nor

Factors influencing malaysian public attitudes to agro-biotechnology

Despite considerable research in advanced countries on public perceptions of and attitudes to modern biotechnology, limited effort has been geared towards developing a structural model of public attitudes to modern biotechnology. The purpose of this paper is to identify the relevant factors influencing public attitudes towards genetically modified (GM) soybean, and to analyze the relationship between all the attitudinal factors. A survey was carried out on 1,017 respondents from various stakeholder groups in the Klang Valley region. Results of the survey have confirmed that attitudes towards complex issues such as biotechnology should be seen as a multifaceted process. The most important factors predicting support for GM soybean are the specific application-linked perceptions about the benefits, acceptance of risk and moral concern while risk and familiarity are significant predictors of benefit and risk acceptance. Attitudes towards GM soybean are also predicted by several general classes of attitude.

Predicting the impact of demand- and supply-side measures on bus ridership in Putrajaya, Malaysia

Putrajaya is a unique Malaysian city from a transport policy perspective, as its explicit goal is to achieve a 70% share of public transport to its core precincts. A study was recently commissioned with the aim of quantifying travelers’ responses to policy measures to ensure effective strategy formulation. This paper describes and discusses the methods, results, and policy implications of the study. Econometric estimation results show that improvement in public transport alone is incapable of inducing sufficient modal shift to achieve the goal of a 70:30 split between public and private transport. Although service quality positively influences ridership, modal split is generally not sensitive to variation in the quality of public transport service. Thus, demand management measures appear to be indispensable as a policy tool to reduce dependence on private transport.