Tickets sold out for some peak-hour JB-Woodlands trains ahead of service resumption
A picture of a KTM train from the company's ticket booking portal. (Photo: KTM Berhad)
SINGAPORE: Tickets have sold out for some peak-hour KTM trains between Malaysia's Johor Bahru Sentral station and Woodlands station in Singapore ahead of the resumption of the service on Sunday (Jun 19).
The service, known as the Tebrau Shuttle, will resume after a two-year suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
When CNA checked the KTM ticketing website on Wednesday, it found that JB Sentral-Woodlands tickets were sold out for train rides after 11.30am on Sunday, the first day the service resumes operations.
The majority of afternoon and evening slots for each Sunday leading up to mid-July were also fully booked.
This was also the case for Jul 11, a Monday, which is the day after the Hari Raya Haji public holiday on both sides of the Causeway.
Tickets were also limited or unavailable for some early Monday morning trains from JB Sentral to Woodlands.
Woodlands-JB Sentral tickets, meanwhile, tended to be unavailable on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings.
Tickets were generally available for most other non-peak times and days, with travellers currently able to book trips between Jun 19 and Jul 18.
CNA has reached out to KTM for more information.
There are 31 Tebrau Shuttle trips between Singapore and Malaysia daily, with 18 from JB Sentral to Woodlands and 13 from Woodlands to JB Sentral.
About 7,000 passengers are expected to use the service daily, with a maximum capacity of 320 passengers for each trip.
Each trip takes about five minutes, according to the KTM website.
Tickets for the JB Sentral to Woodlands route are priced at RM5 (S$1.58) while those for the Woodlands to JB Sentral route cost S$5.
Malaysia and Singapore reopened their borders on Apr 1, allowing vaccinated people to travel across the Causeway via private vehicles.
Cross-border bus and taxi services later resumed on May 1.
Pre-pandemic, the Causeway was one of the busiest land checkpoints in the world, with about 300,000 people passing through every day.
