KUALA LUMPUR: Traffic on Malaysian highways has increased over the weekend as holidaymakers return home after the Deepavali festive season.

       Federal Traffic Investigation and Enforcement Department director Comm Datuk Mat Kasim Karim said over 1.5 million vehicles were recorded on three major highways nationwide on Sunday (Nov 7).

       "We recorded 1.27 million vehicles along the North-South Expressway (NSE), 183,087 vehicles along the Kuala Lumpur-Karak Expressway and 68,088 vehicles along the East Coast Expressway (Phase One).

       "Our checks also revealed increased traffic at toll plazas on these expressways," he said on Sunday and added that this is based on a comparison of Saturday (Nov 6) and Oct 18.

       "Along the NSE, the Jalan Duta toll plaza showed an 11.98% increase with 64,439 vehicles compared to 57,544, while Sungai Besi toll plaza showed only a 1.79% increase with 41,655 vehicles on Saturday compared to 40,924 on Oct 18.

       "The Skudai toll plaza recorded a 37.53% increase with 28,859 vehicles compared to 20,984 vehicles while the Juru toll plaza recorded a 16.87% increase with 47,894 vehicles compared to 40,980 vehicles," he said.

       Comm Mat Kasim said along the Kuala Lumpur-Karak Expressway, a 57.61% traffic increase was observed at the Gombak toll plaza with 110,820 vehicles compared to 70,312 vehicles.

       "Meanwhile the Bentong toll plaza recorded a 54.36% increase with 72,267 vehicles compared to 46,816 vehicles while the Karak toll plaza saw a 62.51% increase with 22,589 vehicles compared to 13,900 vehicles.

       "The increase in vehicles is attributed to the school holidays and the festive celebrations. Many people took advantage of this to travel," he said.

       He added that on Deepavali, 3.56 million vehicles were recorded while 4.47 million vehicles were recorded the day before (Nov 3).

       "There was no extraordinary traffic congestion on these days on highways while federal roads did see some traffic congestion due to interstate travel.

       "That said, our personnel from each district and state police headquarters were on duty to ease the traffic flow," he said.