KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 — Express Rail Link Sdn Bhd (ERL) was named “AirRail Link of the Year” at the Global AirRail Awards 2014, the second time after its first win in 2012.

ERL Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Noormah Mohd Noor said the award proved that a Malaysian company could provide world-class services with the right mix of technologies and human resource investment.

“There are 140 airports in the world that have direct rail links and at least 24 of them are dedicated air-rail links. So, it was indeed a great honour to be recognised by our peers on a global platform.

“We worked hard to improve our services to customers who keep us on our toes all the time,” she said in a statement here.

She received the award at a ceremony during the international conference ‘Global AirRail: Customer Experience’ held in Oslo last Thursday organised by the Global AirRail Alliance (GARA), an international organisation dedicated to air-rail intermodality.

According to the statement, the judges commended ERL on its very good overall long-term performance, good adoption of new technology, consistent positive business results and were impressed by the development of station infrastructure as part of the growth plan.

On the implementation of ERL’s new cloud-based Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) system, the judges felt that the development of the concept had led to improved ridership and patronage, which was the essence of good air-rail connectivity.

The statement said judges from air and rail industries evaluated the entries and selected this year’s winners in nine different categories among them were service to customers, revenue growth and performance improvements, development and introduction of new services and products, and effective communication with customers.

ERL is the operator of KLIA Ekspres and KLIA Transit train services that connect Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA & KLIA2) and the Kuala Lumpur city centre.

Prior to this year’s award, ERL has won the Global AirRail Awards for Best Customer Service (2011), Personality of the Year – Noormah Mohd Noor (2011) and Environmental Commitment (2013).