SMRT increases 'Early Travel' discount to 50 cents

SMRT will increase the current ‘Early Travel’ discount to 50 cents from 30 cents from 6 August onwards.

This is to encourage commuters to make changes to their travel patterns and further ease crowding during morning peak hours, said SMRT.

The 50-cent discount will benefit adult and senior citizen passengers who begin their journey from any North-South Line , East-West Line, Bukit Panjang Light Rail Transit or Circle Line station outside the city area and arrive at 14 city area stations before 7:45am on weekdays, excluding public holidays.

The 14 city area stations are Bugis, City Hall, Dhoby Ghaut, Lavender, Orchard, Outram Park, Raffles Place, Somerset and Tanjong Pagar, and the newly added CCL stations Bayfront, Bras Basah, Esplanade, Marina Bay and Promenade.

Last October, SMRT raised the discount from 10 cents to 30 cents for commuters who travel early and exit designated stations within the city area before 7:45am, a 15 minute extension.

With the enhanced discount, Land Transport Authority (LTA) and SMRT observed that about 3 to 4 per cent of commuters have shifted their travel time out of the morning peak hour.

In addition to the discount scheme, LTA is also embarking on a three-month train loading trial starting 19 July to study the effectiveness of train loading information posters in helping commuters decide when to start their trips.

The posters (shown on the left) use different different gradient colours to represent the varying train loading levels at a MRT station from 'less crowded' to 'more crowded' from 7:00am to 10:00am on weekdays.

Seven MRT stations -- Outram Park, Tanjong Pagar, Raffles Place, City Hall, Bugis, Lavender, Dhoby Ghaut, Somerset and Orchard -- have been identified for the trial.

LTA will evaluate the effectiveness of the posters once the trial is completed before deciding on island-wide implementation.