KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 25 — As Malaysians are set to celebrate Chinese New Year next week, 90 per cent of KTMB’s ETS, KTM Intercity, and Shuttle Tebrau have been sold, out of the total 248,288 tickets for trips from January 24 to February 2, this year.

To accommodate high demands, the Transport Ministry said two additional ETS trains for the KL Sentral-Padang Besar route were introduced on January 3 and will run on their respective schedules from January 17 to February 14 with a total of 11,970 tickets.

“This initiative was aimed to accommodate to the high demand and ease congestion that often occurs during festive seasons,” Transport Minister Anthony Loke told reporters at KTMB’s Chinese New Year goodie distribution at KL Sentral station today.

Furthermore, one special excursion train covering two trips for the festive season rush will operate to and from KL Sentral and Butterworth with 396 tickets per trip, totalling to 792 tickets.

The excursion train will depart from KL Sentral on January 27 and will depart from Butterworth on the next day.

Besides KL Sentral and Butterworth, the excursion train will also stop at Tanjung Malim, Kampar, Batu Gajah, Ipoh, Kuala Kangsar, Taiping, and Bukit Mertajam.

As of 9 am this morning, 326 tickets (41 per cent) were left for the special excursion train.

Meanwhile, Loke underscored the government’s commitment to empowering rail services throughout Malaysia.

He said Putrajaya will support KTMB to add more carriages and increase the train capacity as more people choose to travel via rail.

“When we look at the capacity that we offer, it’s all sold, which shows a high enough demand. But because of our limited capacity, at the moment, we can only bring 100,000 passengers only.

“If we have more trains, I am sure more people will choose to travel with trains rather than their own vehicle.

“It is government policy today to focus on rail development,” he said.

Ordinary tickets for the ETS, KTM Intercity, and Shuttle Tebrau have been available since July 30, 2024, allowing passengers to plan their trips earlier for festive and holiday periods.