SINGAPORE – From Dec 28, graduating students entering their next phase of education or the workforce can pay concessionary fares on public buses and trains for four months after their studies.

The Public Transport Council (PTC) said on Sept 9 that this will benefit about 75,000 students from institutions such as secondary schools, junior colleges, the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) and polytechnics every year.

The council, which regulates fares and ticket payment services, said the move will help students and their families manage the transition between stages of their education, such as for secondary school students enrolling in the ITE or polytechnics.

The extension of four months will be granted to graduating students whose concession eligibility ends on or after Dec 28.

It will apply to graduating students between two educational stages or those transitioning out of student concessionary benefits, such as junior college (JC) students going to university, added the PTC.

At present, secondary school graduates will have to pay adult fares before they progress to a JC, polytechnic or ITE.

They can still pay concessionary fares for an extra month after they leave secondary school, till the end of January, but will have to pay adult fares thereafter until they enrol in their new school.

For example, students leaving secondary schools for polytechnics, where the academic year starts in April, face a two-month period during which they have to pay adult fares.

Others may have to pay adult fares for a longer period. Secondary school graduates enrolling in a diploma course at the Lasalle College of the Arts, for instance, have a transition period of about seven months, as they start school only in August.

In May, Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat brought up the issue of extending concessionary fares for graduating students, after feedback from parents and students. He had then asked PTC to look into this as part of the 2024 fare review exercise.

To extend the validity of their concession cards, graduating students in 2024 can go to any ticketing machine such as SimplyGo kiosks and top-up machines at MRT stations and bus interchanges, or visit a ticketing counter, including passenger service centres, from Oct 1 to Dec 31.

Students who do not extend their concession cards by Dec 31 can still do so after that, but the four-month extension will still start from the end of their studies.

Future batches of students graduating in 2025 or later will be informed by their schools to extend their concession validity only towards the end of their final year of study, said the PTC.

Responding to a question on how the four-month extension is funded, PTC chief executive Leow Yew Chin said the cost of this extension is less than 0.5 per cent of the fare revenue collected each year, and is cross-subsidised by other public transport users.

The funding is kept within the system and is separate from the Government’s subsidies, he added.

When asked why the PTC decided on a four-month extension, Mr Leow said the aim of this move is to ease students’ transition, instead of covering the whole gap between each phase of education.

“It is simple, it is clean and it applies to everybody,” he added. “So long as you have enjoyed concessionary fares before, we recognise that it is going to be a big jump for you to pay adult fares that are more than twice (as much as student fares).”

On why the PTC did not consider a staggered approach for different student groups, its chairwoman Janet Ang chalked it up to keeping things simple for the 75,000 students.

The council announced on Sept 9 that concessionary bus and MRT fares for students and other groups will increase by four cents per journey from Dec 28.

Students whom The Straits Times spoke to mostly welcomed the change.

Calling the move “awesome”, secondary school student Nicole Png, 15, said it would allow graduating students to “slowly get used to” paying higher fares down the track.

But she noted that depending on their tertiary path, some students would face longer transition periods and still need to pay a few months’ worth of adult fares.

Junior college student Willame Leora, 18, said she would prefer that the extension covers the entire duration from the time she completes JC till she enrols in university.

Ms Cherole Tok, 23, who will graduate from ITE in October and hopes to enrol in the Singapore University of Social Sciences during its January intake, said the extension would help students’ transition to their next educational phase with some cost savings, instead of “instantly jumping” to adult fares.

Mr Lochana Charuka Yapa, 20, who will be graduating from polytechnic in May 2025, said the extension can help him save some money for a period before he starts his national service.

On the take-up rates of various concession passes, PTC council member Lim Boon Wee noted that there has been an increase of 57 per cent in the uptake of hybrid bus and rail concession passes for seniors from 12,900 in 2023 to over 20,200 passes in 2024.

He said the take-up rate for adult hybrid concession passes climbed 28 per cent in 2024, while that of the workfare transport concession card for low-wage workers increased from 500 in 2023 to 1,700 cards in 2024.