24 MRT stations to pilot free Wi-Fi service

SINGAPORE — Commuters waiting for the train along the North East Line (NEL), as well as at eight other stations with high commuter usage, will have access to free Wi-Fi as part of a trial by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) to enhance wireless connectivity.

Wireless@SG — a free public Wi-Fi service — will be introduced progressively from the middle of the year on 37 platforms at 24 stations, said the tender document posted yesterday by the authority calling for vendors to implement the trial.

Apart from the 16 NEL stations, the other eight are Jurong East, Raffles Place, City Hall, Bishan, Buona Vista, Paya Lebar, Orchard and Choa Chu Kang.

The trial is part of the Land Transport Master Plan to provide better service on the public transport network, said the authority in a press release yesterday.

The service will be offered only on the platforms and commuters will have broadband access with speeds of up to 2Mbps.

In the master plan unveiled in October last year, the LTA noted that many commuters want to work and communicate while on the move.

The trial is also in line with the authority’s push for smart travel, which includes plans to improve its MyTransport.SG smartphone app in the next few years by rolling out services such as real-time bus and train-platform crowd updates to help commuters avoid congestion.

Some countries in Asia have already started providing such a service. Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway, for example, has free Wi-Fi hot spots at all its stations, while the Tokyo Metro introduced a free Wi-Fi trial at 30 of its train stations last year.

The authority added: “The LTA will monitor the trial for two years before deciding if the service will be extended to other MRT stations.”

Asked how it plans to determine the success of the trial, the LTA said it would assess the number of users and their feedback. The tender will close around the middle of next month.