How Kuala Lumpur's MRT, LRT, Monorail and KTM Lines Connect

Look at a Klang Valley rail map for the first time and it reads like alphabet soup — MRT, LRT, KTM, ERL, a pink Monorail line, and since mid-2026 a brand new Shah Alam Line threaded through it all. The instinct is to treat it as one train system with a confusing number of colours. It isn’t. It is three separate networks, run by three different companies, that happen to cross paths at a handful of shared stations. Once you know which company runs what — and where the free-to-walk transfers actually are — getting around Kuala Lumpur without a car stops being intimidating and becomes routine.

Three operators, not one network

The single biggest misconception about Klang Valley rail is that it is run by one authority. It is not.

Rapid Rail Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of the government-owned Prasarana Malaysia Berhad, operates the LRT lines, the two MRT lines, the KL Monorail, and — since June 2026 — the new Shah Alam Line. These are marketed together under the Rapid KL brand and share a common ticketing system.

KTM Berhad (KTMB), Malaysia’s national railway, separately operates the KTM Komuter commuter rail service, which uses its own conventional rail tracks rather than the elevated or underground guideways of the LRT and MRT.

Express Rail Link Sdn Bhd (ERL) runs the airport rail service — KLIA Ekspres and KLIA Transit — connecting KL Sentral to Kuala Lumpur International Airport, again as a separate company with its own tickets.

The practical effect: a Rapid KL travel card or app does not work on KTM Komuter or the airport train, and vice versa. Where the three systems meet is at a small number of interchange stations, chiefly KL Sentral.

The lines, at a glance

Line	Type	Operator	Route	Length / stations
Kelana Jaya Line	LRT	Rapid Rail	Gombak – Putra Heights	46.4 km, 37 stations
Ampang Line / Sri Petaling Line	LRT	Rapid Rail	Shared trunk through the city centre, branching to Ampang and to Putra Heights via Sri Petaling	45.1 km, 36 stations combined
Shah Alam Line (LRT3)	LRT	Rapid Rail	Bandar Utama – Johan Setia, Klang	37.8 km; 20 of 25 planned stations open (opened 29 June 2026)
Kajang Line	MRT	Rapid Rail	Kwasa Damansara – Kajang	Underground through central KL, elevated elsewhere
Putrajaya Line	MRT	Rapid Rail	Kwasa Damansara – Putrajaya Sentral	57.7 km, 36 stations, 13.5 km underground
KL Monorail	Monorail	Rapid Rail	KL Sentral – Titiwangsa	8.6 km, 11 stations
Seremban Line	KTM Komuter	KTMB	Batu Caves – Tampin/Pulau Sebang	135 km
Port Klang Line	KTM Komuter	KTMB	Tanjung Malim – Port Klang	131 km
KLIA Ekspres / KLIA Transit	Airport rail	Express Rail Link	KL Sentral – KLIA	Non-stop express and all-stops variants

The MRT Kajang Line was the first MRT line to open in the Klang Valley, running underground beneath the city centre before rising onto elevated track towards Kajang. The Putrajaya Line, the second MRT line, runs a longer route with the largest underground stretch of any line in the network. Both were built and are asset-owned through the wider MRT programme, with Rapid Rail handling day-to-day operations.

The Shah Alam Line is the newest addition to the map: it opened to passengers on 29 June 2026, becoming the network’s fourth fully automated, driverless rail system after the Kelana Jaya Line, the Ampang/Sri Petaling Line and the two MRT lines. Only 20 of its 25 planned stations were open at launch, with the remainder due by 2028 — so the western end of the network is still, quite literally, under construction.

Where the lines actually connect

Because each line was built by a different project team at a different time, interchange stations are not evenly spread — they cluster around a few points where the network was deliberately designed, or later retrofitted, to meet.

KL Sentral is the closest thing the Klang Valley has to a single hub. Both KTM Komuter lines call there, the KL Monorail begins there, and KLIA Ekspres/KLIA Transit terminate there — putting national rail, city rail and the airport line within one concourse.

Masjid Jamek, near the historic river confluence, is where the Kelana Jaya Line and the Ampang/Sri Petaling Line cross, making it a key transfer point for anyone moving between the two older LRT lines.

Pasar Seni is the main interchange between the MRT Kajang Line and the Kelana Jaya LRT line, useful for journeys that start on one system and need to finish on the other without detouring through KL Sentral.

Putra, Bank Negara and Kuala Lumpur stations are where the two KTM Komuter lines themselves cross over, letting Komuter passengers switch between the Seremban and Port Klang Lines without going all the way to KL Sentral.

Planning a journey across lines

For any trip confined to Rapid Rail’s own network — LRT, MRT, Monorail or the Shah Alam Line — a single Touch ‘n Go card, a contactless bank card tapped directly at the gate, or a token bought from a station machine carries a passenger across as many of those lines as the trip needs, with no separate ticket required at each interchange. The MyRapid Pulse app (Rapid KL’s official journey planner) covers exactly this set of services — MRT, LRT, Monorail, the Sunway BRT and Rapid KL’s feeder buses — with live arrival times and route planning.

The moment a journey needs KTM Komuter or the airport train, that convenience stops. Both are separate operators with separate fare media, so a Rapid KL card does not carry over, and the traveller instead buys a KTM Komuter ticket or an ERL ticket for that leg of the trip, tapping in and out at that operator’s own gates.

Common mistakes

• Assuming one card works everywhere. Touch ‘n Go and Rapid KL fare media cover the LRT/MRT/Monorail/Shah Alam Line group only — KTM Komuter and the airport trains are ticketed separately, even at a shared station like KL Sentral.
• Treating KL Sentral as a single platform. It is several stations — KTM Komuter, Monorail and ERL each have distinct concourses and gates under one roof, so a change of line still means walking, not just waiting on the same platform.
• Expecting the Shah Alam Line to be fully built out. As of its 2026 opening, five of its 25 planned stations were still under construction, so parts of the western route are not yet reachable by rail.
• Not checking which LRT branch a train is heading to. The Ampang and Sri Petaling Lines share track through the city centre before splitting at each end, so boarding the wrong branch train can add a long detour.

What’s next

For context on the city these lines serve, see NegaraKu.md’s guide to Kuala Lumpur as Malaysia’s federal capital, and Selangor, the surrounding state that most of the network — including the new Shah Alam Line — runs through.