The public transportation system in Singapore faces peak-hour overloads. At times, MRT trains are over-crowded to the extent that commuters cannot board the trains. The Ministry of Transport (MOT) and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) have been trying to shift part of the crowd to off-peak periods by offering fare discounts for off-peak travel. This research examines the effectiveness of a surcharge policy at shifting travel from peak to off-peak periods and commuters’ perception of the policy. We also develop and test different potential solutions to increase commuters’ receptivity toward peak-hour surcharge. In particular, we investigated the behavioural and psychological impact of donating the collected surcharge to charity—varying the proportion of the surcharge to donate (50 per cent or 100 per cent) and the degree of autonomy commuters have in deciding the benefactor of the donation. To this end, we conducted a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) involving more than 900 commuters across the nation, examining their travel patterns before, during, and after a six-week intervention period as well as capturing their attitudes toward the surcharge policy at different points in time during the experiment.