SHAH ALAM – Malaysia’s locally developed TuJu application was designed primarily to support motorists travelling on tolled highways, rather than compete directly with navigation platform Waze, Malaysian Highway Authority (LLM) chairman Datuk Seri Hasni Mohammad says.
His clarification comes amid public criticism over TuJu’s technical problems following the government’s push for Malaysians to use the local application amid security concerns surrounding Waze.
Hasni said TuJu was conceived as an additional service for highway users, providing traffic updates, information on rest areas, enforcement camera locations and emergency assistance contacts.
“It is not a navigation application like Waze,” he told an online news outlet MalaysiaKini in an interview published on Oct 27.
He said the application could be particularly useful to motorists who encounter emergencies or vehicle breakdowns on highways, allowing them to identify the relevant contacts and assistance available.
“If you are stranded on a highway, you can use TuJu to find the telephone numbers of people you can contact and the assistance available,” he was quoted as saying.
Hasni, who is also Simpang Renggam MP, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had instructed him to improve the application following complaints about glitches and its performance.
The clarification comes after Anwar recommended TuJu as an alternative to Waze, citing concerns about information security and users’ movement data linked to the latter’s Israeli origins.
On Oct 21, the government also directed civil servants to stop using Waze for official duties.
However, Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo later clarified that civil servants could use other navigation applications, including Google Maps and were not restricted to TuJu.
TuJu’s technical problems emerged after a surge in downloads following the prime minister’s recommendation. LLM subsequently apologised for the disruption and said it was working with the application’s developer, Prosignal Consortium Sdn Bhd, to restore system stability and improve its capacity.
Prosignal later announced that it was targeting Nov 6 to restore and stabilise TuJu’s turn-by-turn navigation function. Other features, including highway closed-circuit television feeds, toll rates and rest area information, remained available.
The project has also drawn questions about its development and oversight.
Hasni said he had read the minutes of a National Security Council briefing held on Oct 20, which he did not attend and wanted to establish whether LLM and Prosignal had clearly explained the application’s intended purpose.
“If the briefing given by LLM to the NSC was misleading, it should not have happened,” he was quoted as saying.
Questions have also been raised about Prosignal’s links to former LLM chairman Datuk Abdul Rashid Asari, who reportedly said he had proposed the project and confirmed that it was not awarded through an open tender.
Hasni said the LLM board had approved the project collectively, stressing that the decision was not made by one individual alone.
“TuJu is financed by investors in the project, whether through internal funds or loans,” he said when asked about the absence of an open tender.
Asked whether the project generated income for LLM, Hasni said he would need to check its projected return on investment.
Meanwhile, the government has indicated that TuJu’s capabilities could be expanded beyond highways in response to public feedback. Gobind told the Dewan Rakyat on Oct 22 that work was under way to extend its coverage to ordinary roads and improve the availability of traffic information.
However, Hasni said broader coverage would depend on technical capabilities, funding and the availability of highway traffic information, with the application’s immediate focus remaining on tolled highways.
TuJu was developed by Prosignal in collaboration with LLM under a memorandum of understanding signed on May 26, 2022, and was officially launched on Nov 26, 2025.