SINGAPORE - MRT and LRT train services will end later tonight for members of the public who wish to pay their last respects to Mr Lee Kuan Yew at Parliament House but will not run overnight.
The last MRT trains will leave City Hall, Raffles Place and Clarke Quay stations at about 12.45am instead of the usual around 11.50pm. LRT services and 41 feeder bus services will also run for extended service hours to match the arrival of the last trains.
SBS and SMRT will operate their Night Bus services from midnight on to 6am on Friday.
They will provide connections to major residential areas such as Jurong, Bukit Batok, Yishun, Ang Mo Kio, Sengkang and Tampines. These 13 bus services will operate at intervals of 20 minutes up to 3am, and 30 minutes to 6am.
The public transport operators are not able to run train services the entire night tonight as they did last night, because of the need for them to carry out maintenance of the trains and tracks to ensure that our MRT and LRT services run safely and reliably, said the Land Transport Authority in a statement on Thursday.
"Such work can only be done at night after revenue hours, and the operators did not carry out the works last night because they ran the trains 24 hours to cater to the public who were paying their last respects to Mr Lee on the first night of the Lying in State," it said.
Both SMRT and SBST will deploy additional staff to ensure that maintenance work that could not be done last night due to the non-stop train operations, are completed tonight despite the shorter engineering hours, it added.
Demand for train services last night at the City Hall, Raffles Place, Clarke Quay and Chinatown MRT stations was low, it said.
Commuter traffic data indicated that MRT trains which ran between midnight and 6am on Thursday were on average carrying less than 10 per cent of its maximum capacity.
Many commuters also took alternative travel modes such as private cars and taxis.
"We expect lower demand for public transport tonight compared to last night. Hence, tonight, the slightly extended hours of operation of the trains and feeders, and full-night operation of the 13 Night Bus services, should be able to meet demand," said the LTA.
It added that it will continue to monitor the level of demand tonight and adjust as needed.
Commuters can visit http://www.mytransport.sg/,http://www.sbstransit.com.sg/ and http://www.smrt.com.sg/ for more information.
