JOHOR BAHRU: The Shuttle Tebrau service from Johor Bahru Sentral (JB Sentral) station to Woodlands station in Singapore resumed operations today, after being suspended for two years following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong said the resumption of the service was well-received as almost 70,000 tickets had been sold for a period of one month.

He said the move was seen to reduce congestion on the Johor Causeway after the service was suspended on March 24, 2020, due to the pandemic.

"For the initial stage, we are only targeting 240 passengers (one trip) in the first week because we need to coordinate certain things such as MySejahtera and other features.

"We are targeting 7,000 passengers to be able to use this service daily when it is fully operational," he said at a press conference after flagging off the Shuttle Tebrau train at JB Sentral, here today.


Also present were Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi, Keretapi Tanah Melayu Bhd (KTMB) chairman Datuk Musa Sheikh Fadzir and KTMB Group chief executive officer Mohd Rani Hisham Samsudin.

Meanwhile, Onn Hafiz expressed his appreciation to the Ministry of Transport and KTMB as well as all parties involved in the resumption of the Shuttle Tebrau operation.

"Seeing the resumption of the shuttle service is a historic moment after it was suspended for two years and the people have been waiting since.

"It can help the state to reduce traffic congestion, ticket sales for one month alone reached 70,000 so (we can see) that there is a high demand," he said.

A total of 31 trips will be provided daily for the JB Sentral-Woodlands-JB Sentral routes, namely 18 trips for the JB Sentral-Woodlands route and 13 trips for the Woodlands-JB Sentral route, with a frequency of 30 minutes during peak hours.

Services from JB Sentral start at 5 am and end at 10.45 pm, while Woodlands start at 8.30 am and the last train at 11.45 pm with one-way fare of RM5 per person from JB Sentral and SGD5 per person from Woodlands.

-- BERNAMA