Background
Prasarana Malaysia Berhad operates Kuala Lumpur's urban rail network through its subsidiary Rapid Rail, including the Kelana Jaya Line. Conventional train driving simulators concentrate on individual practice, which limits how far an operator can rehearse the coordination between train crews that a real service disruption demands. To close that gap, Prasarana took delivery of a purpose-built collaborative simulator for the line.
The deployment
The KLAV27 Train Driving Simulator was handed over on 29 July 2026 at Kompleks Rapid Rail Subang in Subang Jaya, Selangor. It was developed and delivered by XCEL ITECH Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian engineering, simulation and digital technology company serving the transport and critical infrastructure sectors, and is described across coverage as Malaysia's first collaborative train driving simulator.
The simulated environment reproduces the entire 46.4-kilometre Kelana Jaya Line, covering all 37 stations and one depot, giving trainees a route-accurate virtual railway rather than a generic track.
Training several drivers at once
The defining feature is that multiple trainees occupy the same virtual railway simultaneously rather than each running an isolated session. In that shared environment they work through:
- coordinated train movements across the line
- service and system disruptions
- emergency response situations
The stated aim is to strengthen workforce competency, sharpen communication and decision-making between operators, and improve emergency preparedness before staff apply those skills on live railway systems — removing the risk that comes with rehearsing such scenarios in service. XCEL ITECH's chief executive, quoted below, framed the handover as the transfer of a national capability rather than the delivery of a single training device, and pointed to it as evidence that Malaysian firms can build advanced railway technology for real operational needs.
The system
Photography from the handover shows the simulator installed as a dedicated room-scale rig at the Subang complex: an enclosed replica driver cab with a large forward-view display carrying the real-time 3D scene, flanked by side-window displays. It is a screen-based simulator rather than a headset-based one.
XCEL ITECH's own description of its train simulator product line — which the delivered system appears to follow — pairs a replica or generic driver cabin and instrumentation with an Instructor Operating Station (IOS) for session control, monitoring, recording and after-action review, an observation station so other students can follow a live session, and support for collaborative training between drivers and an Operation Control Centre.
Programme and partners
The simulator was delivered under Malaysia's Industrial Collaboration Programme (ICP), the government mechanism that channels major procurement contracts into technology transfer, local industry development and capability building. Parties to the project were:
- XCEL ITECH Sdn Bhd — designer, developer and integrator of the simulator
- Alstom Transport Systems Malaysia Sdn Bhd and Hartasuma Sdn Bhd Consortium (AHC) — contractor under the KLAV27 programme
- Technology Depository Agency Berhad (TDA) — ICP administration and management
- Prasarana Malaysia Berhad — operator and recipient
Representatives of all four signed the certificate of handover at Kompleks Rapid Rail Subang, alongside Prasarana's group chief human capital officer and its head of learning and development.
Why it matters
Beyond the training benefit to Rapid Rail, the project is presented as a local-capability milestone: a full-route, multi-user rail simulator specified, built and commissioned in Malaysia for a Malaysian operator, under an offset programme designed to build exactly that kind of domestic expertise as the country's public transport network expands.
