Discounted Public Transport Fares on Non-Performing Routes

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song asked the Minister for Transport if LTA will consider requiring public transport operators to offer fare discounts to commuters on specific MRT and LRT lines when performance for those lines falls below reliability standards and for these discounts to continue until expected standards are reached.

Mr Lui Tuck Yew: Under LTA's current licensing and regulatory framework, the train operators are required to meet the minimum standards as prescribed under the Operating Performance Standards (OPS). These include Train Service Availability and Severity of Service Disruption, which measure the operators' performance in the areas of train availability and reliability. The existing legislation empowers LTA to impose financial penalties of up to $1 million for each incident in the event of non-adherence to the stipulated standards. This acts as a deterrence, to minimise the occurrences of such incidents.

Our current framework does not stipulate the requirement for the operators to offer fare discounts to commuters when performance falls below prescribed standards. However, we note that the operators do provide free bus bridging services and offer full fare refunds to affected commuters in the event of service disruptions. Besides the free bus bridging services, the operators have also recently agreed to an arrangement where regular bus services would be provided free of charge at designated points nearest to the affected stations to cater to extended disruptions. Fares on these free bus services will be borne by the operator of the disrupted MRT line.

Let me assure the House that LTA actively monitors the performance of our train operators against the prescribed standards, and regularly reviews the OPS to keep it up to date. LTA is also in the process of undertaking a comprehensive review of our current regulatory and penalty framework to take on board the lessons learnt from the recent service disruption incidents, as well as recommendations from the Committee of Inquiry. The overall objective of this review is to make our regulatory and penalty framework for our MRT and LRT operators more effective and robust, going forward.

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