Macau’s Light Rail Transit (LRT) recorded a daily average of 5,650 passengers last month, an increase of 150 from the average of 5,500 per day in May, the government-owned LRT operator, Macau Light Rapid Transit Corporation Limited (MLM), announced on its website last week.
Since the LRT passenger numbers started to recover early this year with the post-COVID-19 recovery of Macau’s tourism sector, the system recorded the highest average daily number of passengers of 6,500 in April.
Currently, the LRT only operates on the 9.3-kilometre-long Taipa section which includes Cotai. The Taipa-Cotai section, which started operating on December 10, 2019, has 11 stations.
The LRT recorded a daily average of 3,550 passengers in January this year, the then highest number since the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect Macau in early 2020, as well as since LRT passengers had to pay for their rides starting in February 2020.
The number of 3,550 LRT passengers per day on average recorded in January this year was also the first time that the daily average number of LRT passengers in a month had exceeded the 3,000 benchmark since the start of the pandemic.
Macau confirmed its first COVID-19 case on January 22, 2020.
The daily average number of LRT passengers continued to rise to 4,750 in February this year, and remained unchanged at 4,750 in March.
The LRT system recorded a daily average of 33,000 and 16,000 passengers in December 2019 and January 2020 respectively, when LRT rides were free.
Since February 2020, LRT passengers have to buy tickets which, however, continue to be free for the elderly.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of LRT passengers fell drastically.
According to the MLM website, except for January 2020 when a daily average of 16,000 passengers was recorded, the LRT recorded an average daily number of passengers of just 1,691 during the other 11 months of 2020.
The LRT had a daily average of 1,989 passengers in 2021, while the figure dropped to an average of just 1,850 per day last year.
Macau’s next new LRT section that will come into service will be the one connecting Taipa and Barra at the southernmost tip of the peninsula via Sai Van Bridge, which the government is now aiming to open by the end of this year.
A Light Rail Transit (LRT) train is about to arrive at Pai Kok station outside Galaxy Macau in Cotai earlier this year. – Photo: Tony Wong
