SingPost to trial postal collection service via SMRT trains

SINGAPORE Post (SingPost) and SMRT’s business arm, Stellar Lifestyle, are launching a postal collection pilot project as part of their memorandum of understanding to explore deploying more postal service points near MRT stations.

For three months starting from Tuesday (Jun 25), up to two “mail ambassadors” in SingPost uniforms will collect postal items daily from the Tampines and Raffles Place MRT stations.

They will travel on the East-West Line between the off-peak hours of 11 am and 2 pm to bring these postal items to SingPost’s sorting facility located near the Paya Lebar MRT station.

SingPost and Stellar Lifestyle said the pilot was designed to study the benefits of utilising MRT trains to collect postal items, particularly in terms of operational cost efficiencies and carbon emission savings.

It also represents the first time SingPost will be using MRT trains for postal collection.

Should the pilot prove successful, both parties plan to expand the trial to more train stations across all other SMRT-operated lines.

SingPost will also determine where more POPStops and service points may be located in future. 

Describing SMRT’s rail network as “highly accessible”, SingPost’s chief executive officer for Singapore, Shahrin Abdol Salam, said its partnership with Stellar Lifestyle will allow the group to bring its services “closer to the community, seamlessly integrating into their daily routines”.

“The extension of our collaboration with Stellar Lifestyle will continue to bring convenience to consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises, by strategically situating our service points along key transportation nodes across Singapore,” he added.

Shahrin was formerly managing director of SMRT’s Thomson-East Coast Line and the senior vice-president of strategic relations at SMRT.

He was appointed to his current position at SingPost from May 1 this year.

Shares of SingPost were trading flat at S$0.455 as at 10.37 am on Monday, after the news.