Daily ridership for the Mass Rapid Transit Sungai Buloh-Kajang Line (MRT SBK) has surpassed the 140,000-mark with yesterday's figures registering a total of 142,313 passengers.

Rapid Rail chief executive officer Datuk Zohari Sulaiman hoped that Malaysians, especially those living in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, would continue to make public transport as their preference over driving their own vehicles into the city.

"The statistics are actually even more flattering as normally, daily ridership is highest on week-days when people are working. In this case, we have 142,313 on a weekend, on Saturday.

"And, looking at today's report from my staff on the ground, we should be having a very high ridership today as well," he said in a statement.

Launching the second phase of the MRT SBK Line on July 17, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced free rides between Kajang and Muzium Negara for the day, contributing to a ridership of about 100,000 for the day.

The prime minister also announced a 50 per cent discount on fare when travelling on the MRT and Rapid KL's other rail services - the Kelana Jaya LRT Line, Ampang LRT Line, Sri Petaling LRT Line and the Monorail service until Merdeka Day on Aug 31.

"We recorded a daily ridership of 90,409 on July 18 that increased to 96,887 passengers on July 19. We had 95,009 passengers on July 20 and we broke the 100,000-mark on Friday, July 21 with a daily ridership of 110,782 and yesterday's 142,313 passengers," Zohari said.

"Naturally, we would like to thank the commuters for their support. We sincerely hope that they would continue to use Rapid Rail public transport network that included the Kelana Jaya LRT Line, Ampang LRT Line, Sri Petaling LRT Line, the Monorail service and the MRT SBK, which is operated by Rapid KL," he added.

Phase 1 between Sungai Buloh and Semantan was launched on Dec 15 last year, operating the following day with an average daily ridership of 15,000 passengers.

-- BERNAMA