According to official data released by theMacau Light Rail Transit CorporationThe average number of passengers increased by 10.3% compared to January and rose by 30.8% compared to the same month in 2025.
The light rail was inaugurated on December 10, 2019, and that month held the absolute record, with an average of 33,000 passengers per day, although at that time the rides were free.
In February 2020, with the start of fee collection and the detection of the first cases of infection by the new coronavirus in Macau, the daily average of passengers dropped to 1,100.
Read more: Macau hotels record highest January occupancy since before the pandemic
The light rail system would register this minimum value again in July 2022, when the city was under lockdown for two weeks due to a COVID-19 outbreak. In December 2024, the extension of the surface light rail that connects Macau to neighboring Hengqin, measuring 2.2 kilometers, began operations.
A month earlier, the line that runs to Seac Pai Van, a Coloane neighborhood where the Macau government built 60,000 public housing apartments, was inaugurated.
The light rail system started with just one line, circulating only on Taipa Island, with a length of 9.3 kilometers and 11 stations, operating at intervals of ten to fifteen minutes for nearly 17 hours a day.
The metro connection to the Barra area in the south of the Macau peninsula, via the lower level of the Sai Van Bridge, began operations in December 2023. With the extension of the light metro, authorities expect passenger volume to reach 137,000 people per day by 2030.
The government launched, at the end of 2022, the tenders for the design and construction of the East Line of the light metro, which will connect the northern part of the Macau Peninsula, where the main border with mainland China is located.
At the end of January, the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raymond Tam, said that the operator has promised to implement electronic payment, as well as a transfer system between buses and light rail, still this year.
Ended on February 28 a public consultation on the development of the light metro system, which forecasts that the construction of the East Line should be completed by 2029. The plans include a South Line, which will connect the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge border checkpoint to the Barrier Station, a West Line, from the Qingmao border to the Barrier, and a connection to the Coloane village.
