Macau’s Light Rail Transit (LRT), which currently only covers Taipa and Cotai, had an average daily number of 3,550 passengers last month, the highest since the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect Macau in early 2020.

Macau confirmed its first novel coronavirus case on January 22, 2020.

The 3,550 LRT passengers per day on average recorded last month was also the first time that the daily average number of LRT passengers in a month exceeded the 3,000 benchmark since the start of the pandemic.

The government-owned LRT operator, Macau Light Rapid Transit Corporation Limited (MLM), announced last month’s average daily number of LRT passengers on its website earlier this month.

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 number of LRT passengers had fallen drastically due to declining visitor numbers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, after the system recorded an average daily number of passengers of 33,000 and 16,000 in December 2019 and January 2020 respectively. 

Before last month, the daily average number of LRT passengers had amounted to just around 2,000 since the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the MLM website, except in January 2020 when an average of 16,000 daily passengers were recorded, while the LRT recorded an average daily number of passengers of 1,691 during the other 11 months in 2020.

In 2021, the daily average number of LRT passengers stood at 1,989, according to the MLM website.

Last year, the LRT had an average daily passenger number of 1,850, according to the website.

Before last month, the LRT recorded the highest average daily number of passengers of 2,600, in July 2021 and October last year, since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The LRT system is owned by the local government through its Macau Light Rapid Transit Corporation Limited (MLM) but its operation has been outsourced to Hong Kong’s MTR Railway Operations (Macau) Company Limited.

According to its contract with the Macau government, Hong Kong’s MTR is slated to operate the LRT Taipa section in the five years from its operational start in December 2019.

In a reply to a written interpellation by lawmaker-cum-unionist Lei Chan U, the Transport Bureau (DSAT) said earlier this month that Macau Light Rapid Transit Corporation Limited has gradually been taking over more and more work operating the LRT system from MTR. 

This handout photo taken from the Public Works Bureau’s (DSOP) website yesterday shows the construction of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Seac Pai Van section in October last year.