MTR to reduce weekday frequency from Friday

Weekday services of eight railway lines will be reduced from Friday, after which passengers will have to wait one to four minutes longer for trains. 

The change resulted from staff shortage and drastic reduction in patronage amid the pandemic, MTR Corp said on Wednesday. 

Both peak and non-peak services will be affected for the eight lines, namely East Rail, Tsuen Wan, Kwun Tong, Island, South Island, Tseung Kwan O, Tung Chung and Tuen Ma. 

Train frequencies of the East Rail Line during weekends and public holidays will also be slightly adjusted. 

For East Rail line, waiting time for morning peak period from 7.30am to 9.30am will be lengthened from a range of 2.9 to 3.5 minutes, to between 6 and 7 minutes. 

Waiting time for Tsuen Wan line will increase from 2 minutes to a range of 3 to 3.6 minutes during the same period. 

As for Island line, the normal wait of between 1.9 to 2.9 minutes will be lengthened to a range of 3.4 to 3.6 minutes. 

More details for each line can be found here. 

MTR ridership for peak hours on weekdays during the second half of February 2022 was less than half of that in December 2021. Patronage on weekends and public holidays plunged by about 60 percent from last December. 

Meanwhile, the number of MTR operations and maintenance staff and contractor personnel who cannot come to work because they have been tested positive for Covid-19 has accumulated to around 1,500. 

“Together with those unable to report for duty after being classified as close contacts by the Centre for Health Protection or required to undergo compulsory testing, the manpower shortage creates enormous challenges to train operations,” MTRCL said.