SINGAPORE – Public transport fares will drop by 4.2 per cent from Dec 30, the Public Transport Council (PTC) announced on Thursday (27 Oct).
Adults using travel cards can save between 1 and 27 cents for a journey, while 1 to 7 cents will be shaved off the fares for senior citizens. Students will also benefit with savings of 1 cent for each journey.
The concessionary card fares for lower-wage workers and persons with disabilities will also be adjusted with the latest fare revisions.
Lower-wage workers can save 1 to 25 cents, while concessionary card fares for persons with disabilities will be lowered by 1 to 7 cents.
The prices of other monthly concession passes and monthly travel passes will remain unchanged, PTC said.
These fare reductions will potentially benefit 2.2 million commuters, PTC said.
A further reduction of 1.5 per cent in public transport fares will be reviewed in the next fare review exercise.
“The lower energy prices in 2015 have allowed PTC to reduce all card fares,” said Mr Richard Magnus, Chairman of the PTC.
PTC also announced that the existing fare structure will be simplified to a single fare structure.
Currently, fully-underground lines like the North East, Circle and Downtown Lines have a different fare structure from the North-South and East-West Lines, LRT Lines and buses to reflect the higher operating costs (e.g. air-conditioned platforms).
This will result in savings of 5 to 25 cents for adult commuters.
A purely distance-based approach will also be adopted to calculate fares based on the shortest travel path, as opposed to the current method of calculation by the fastest travel path which may not always the shortest distance.
grongloh@sph.com.sg
