Higher maintenance costs, coupled with lower ridership and fare revenue, have dented SMRT's train business in the latest financial year.

In its annual operations review report published yesterday, SMRT Trains posted an after-tax loss of $86 million in FY2018. It made an after-tax profit of $26 million in the previous financial year.

Operating expenses for FY2018 hit $838 million, up from $785 million in the previous financial year.

Meanwhile, revenue fell from $791 million to $743 million.

On the bright side, reliability on two of SMRT's rail lines improved.

In the financial year ending March 31, trains on the East-West Line travelled about 13 per cent longer on average before encountering a delay of more than five minutes.

In addition, the Circle Line more than doubled its mean kilometres between failures, compared with the previous financial year.

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