It was announced back in August that the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) service will be starting on 12 December, with ticket sales starting sometime in November. Today, at the Transport Expo Asia – which also saw the launch of the ALS RoboVan – Transport Minister Anthony Loke also announced that there will be a 30% discount for all economy-class tickets for the first month of the rail service’s operation.
NST cites the minister as saying, “in conjunction with the opening of ECRL, a 30% discount will be given to the public for all economy tickets for one month, beginning from the start of operations”. That being said, this discount is only for passengers who are not eligible for special fares.
As a reminder, this means that the 30% discount does not stack with the 50% discount that applies for children aged between two and 12, Malaysian senior citizens aged 60 and above, government pensioners, and holders of the OKU card. Similarly, it also does not apply to students aged 13 to 24, who already enjoy a 40% discount.
It was also previously revealed that the one-way fares for the 209km Gombak – KotaSAS route will start from RM60 and RM68 for economy-class transit and express services respectively. Then there’s the 378km Gombak – Kuala Terengganu route, which will start from RM95 and RM110 respectively. Finally, the 523km Gombak – Kota Bharu route will be priced starting from RM125 and RM147 respectively. The prices are noted to be dynamic, affected by travel time, demand, and seat availability.
The ECRL is noted to be able to transport up to 10,000 passengers daily between Selangor and Kelantan, with 10 train sets carrying between 300 and 425 passengers each. With the train speeds hitting 160 km/h, it can traverse the 523km Gombak – Kota Bharu route in about four hours.
(Source: NST)
