Rush hour commuters dropped 7% in debut week of free MRT ride

Is it what we expected?

According to a release by the Land Transport Authority, there has been moderate response in the first week of the free pre-peak travel trial launched on 24 June 2013.

Preliminary results from the first week of the trial indicated that there was a sustained decrease of about 7% of commuters exiting the 16 designated city stations during the peak period between 8.00am and 9.00am, compared to the average daily figures of 94,000 for the first three weeks of June 2013. There was a 29% increase in exits during the pre-peak period between 7.00am and 7.45am.

There was adequate capacity in the trains observed last week for the pre-peak period. The LTA had worked with the train operators to inject additional train trips throughout the week to cater to the increase in pre-peak travel. Additional exit fare gates were also activated at stations where there was a higher number of commuters exiting.

On the first day after school reopened on 1 July, there was a decrease of about 2%, or about 1,900 commuters exiting the 16 city stations during the peak period.

This was compared to the average daily figures of 96,500 for the month of May 2013, before the June school holidays. There was a 34% increase in exits today during the pre-peak period between 7.00am and 7.45am, again as compared to May 2013. We should note that July is typically a high ridership month, and there could be daily fluctuations.

There were in fact about 6% more exits at the 16 city stations between 7.00am and 9.00am today compared to the average daily figures in May 2013.