On 14 October 2025, the Public Transport Council (PTC) announced that bus and train fares will be increasing by about 5% from 27 December 2025.
For adult commuters, card fares will rise by 9 to 10 cents per trip, while cash fares will increase by 20 cents. Concession card users, such as students, seniors, people with disabilities and Workfare Transport Concession cardholders, will see fare increases of between 3 and 4 cents for distances travelled more than 3.2 km. Similarly, cash fares will also increase by 10 cents for seniors and those with disabilities and by 5 cents for students.
Additionally, the PTC also announced a fare adjustment for express bus services. This is the first adjustment since 2010, when distance-based fares were introduced. The PTC explained that the difference in fares between the express and basic bus services is to reflect the higher costs of providing express bus services compared to the basic bus services.
The card fare difference between express and basic bus services will increase by 40 cents for adults and 20 cents for concession groups. Whereas, cash fare for all commuters will increase by 60 cents.
According to the PTC, the overall 5% fare adjustment is less than the maximum allowable fare adjustment of 14.4%. This is done to reduce the impact of the rising cost of living for Singaporeans while balancing the sustained increases in costs of public transport operations.
How Are Public Transport Prices & Fares Adjustments Determined By The Public Transport Council?
Public transport prices are reviewed annually during the Fare Review Exercise (FRE) conducted by the PTC. The exercise aims to keep fares affordable while ensuring operators are incentivised to improve the public transport system and recover rising operating costs without overburdening commuters or taxpayers through higher subsidies.
Regular fare adjustments also help fares stay responsive to changing operational costs and allow fare adjustments to be made gradually. Over the past 3 years, the PTC has moderated fare hikes by deferring 12.9% in adjustments from previous FREs.
For 2025, adding this deferred 12.9% to the 1.5% generated by the fare adjustment formula results in a maximum allowable fare adjustment of 14.4%, which is lower than the 18.9% from 2024 FRE. Nevertheless, the PTC has decided to only grant a fare adjustment of 5% and defer the remaining 9.4% to future FREs.
What Is The Fare Adjustment Formula?
The Fare Adjustment Formula aims to ensure the commercial viability and sustainability of public transport operators (PTOs) while also ensuring that commuters’ interests are protected. Rather than allowing PTOs to pass along the full costs to commuters, the formula protects the interests of commuters by placing a cap on any fare adjustments.
The Fare Formula considers and includes components such as inflation, wages, energy costs, Productive Contribution (PC) and Capacity Adjustment Factor (C) to derive the Fare Adjustment Quantum to help the PTC decide on how much to adjust for bus and train fares.
Source: PTC
This year, the fare adjustment quantum generated by the formula is 1.5%.
For the previous FREs, the reference period was the 12 months ending in December of the year prior to the FRE. Going forward, this will be shifted to the 12-month period ending in June of the FRE year. This is expected to reduce the gap between the cost changes experienced by operators and fare adjustments by 6 months.
How Does The Current Fare Formula Differ From The Previous Fare Formula
Because of the ever-changing cost structure and productivity achieved in the industry, the Fare Formula is reviewed regularly by the PTC. The previous Fare Formula was valid from 2018 to 2022 before it was revised in 2023 to the current formula that will last through to 2027.
Previously, the Fare Formula included the Core Consumer Price Index, Wage Index, Energy Index, Productivity Extraction (PE) and Network Capacity Factor (NCF), as shown below:
Fare Adjustment Formula (2017 – 2022) = 0.5 cCPI + 0.4 WI + 0.1 EI – PE+ NCF.
Under the revised formula, the PE component has been replaced by a Productivity Contribution (PC) component while the NCF has been replaced by a new Capacity Adjustment Factor (C). The changes in the components factor in a fixed rate instead of relying on the end-results by the transport operators. These changes introduce a fixed rate instead of relying on the operators’ performance outcomes. This approach not only incentivises the operators to achieve certain targets but also increases transparency in how the fare adjustments are determined.
How The PTC Ensures Public Transport Fare Affordability
To ensure that the public transport fares remain affordable, the PTC monitors the affordability level based on two income groups – the second quintile of household income, representing the average commuter group, and the second decile of household income, representing the lower-income commuter group.
According to the Public Transport Affordability Indicator, as shown below, households in these two income groups have been spending proportionately less of their monthly income on public transport fares in recent years.
Source: PTC
Furthermore, the government will also provide over $200 million in additional subsidies to cover the cost of deferring the remaining 9.4% fare adjustment. This is on top of the more than $2 billion in annual public transport subsidies to help sustain the public bus and trains operations. In effect, every commuter receives more than $1 in subsidies for each journey taken on public transport.
Read Also: Public Transport Voucher (PTV): Who Is Eligible And How Can You Claim It?
