Kenya Railways has bowed to pressure and reduced the transport cost of the Nairobi Rail Commuter service from the city centre to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).
When the new train service was launched more than a week ago, it capped the fare at Ksh 500 for the 20 to 30-minute ride. Now, it has revised this to Ksh250.
In a statement on Thursday, Kenya Railways announced that the new fare will be in place for the next 90 days.
It will cost the same amount for passengers travelling from JKIA to the CBD riding in the Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU).
“Why miss your flight? Get to and from JKIA with the Nairobi commuter train-DMU express service and connect seamlessly to over 10 flights daily to Mombasa and Kisumu,” the statement read.
Several DMUs will be deployed in this route upto the Embakasi Village Station where standby BRT buses will be waiting to shuttle the passengers to the airport.
The DMUs under the express rail commuter service will operate during morning hours – 5.45 am – and arrive at the Embakasi Village station at 6.10 am. They will then board a bus which will depart at 6.20 am and arrive at the airport at 6.35 am.
There will also be the mid-morning train that leaves the city centre at 11 am and reaches Embakasi Village station at 11:25 am. The BRT bus from there will arrive at JKIA at 11:50 am.
Another evening train will leave the CBD at 8 pm and arrive at Embakasi Village at 8:25 pm. From there, the BRT bus will leave the terminus at 8:35 pm and get to JKIA at 9 pm.
However, there will only be two trains daily from Embakasi to the CBD. The first one will leave at 6:15 am and get to the city cente at around 6:50 am.
The second train headed for the CBD from Embakasi will be around mid-day.
This comes a few weeks after the Nairobi Commuter train was launched and is now plying five main routes in and out of the city during peak hours which are morning and evening.
