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Bukit Panjang LRT Might Be Scrapped; Here’s what You Need to Know

2016-10-07 , 12:50 pm

Last Updated on 2016-11-15 , 6:27 pm

For most of us who are residing in the west, we are most likely to have heard of his news and felt the possible impact on us in the future. As someone who has taken the LRT on a regular basis a few years back, I could not imagine how my journey to school back then could have been if there wasn’t the LRT system.

For those who have not read up about this news yet or for those who decided that this blog post was TL;DR, here’re the things you need to know about how this whole news came about.

The Bukit Panjang LRT system has been operating since November 1999 – which means this system is probably around the same age as most of us or there is just a mere few years’ age gap. It is also mentioned in the blog that this system is nearing the end of its design life, which would mean that such breakdowns occurring are not exactly unexpected.

Following the 8 hours’ disruption which happened on the BPLRT on Wednesday 28 September 2016, the SMRT management has been looking into the entire operations of the BPLRT.

However, scrapping the BPLRT system is has not been confirmed yet but it’s one of the 4 options they SMRT management came up with as of now. Here’re the other 3 options:

Option 1: A new people-mover like autonomous guided vehicles that travel on the existing viaducts but do not draw on external power.

Option 2: A new conventional LRT system but with significant design enhancement in key infrastructure like power supply, signalling system, rolling stock as well as track and station assets.

Option 3: Renewing the existing Bombardier system, keeping the AC power design but with a more advanced communications-based train control (CBTC) signalling system. This CBTC system will allow trains to be more accurately controlled by the operations control centre, allowing more trains to be operated on the network, while moving at faster speeds and closer headways if necessary. This means more people can take the trains and enjoy faster journeys.

Scraping away the BPLRT system would mean that commuters would have to travel using the bus services. Admittedly, a double-decker bus can take up to 130 passengers as compared to a single cabin LRT train – which can only take up to 105 passengers – but that is during non-peak hours. During peak hours, the BPLRT system runs on double cabins – which means it can carry up to 210 passengers. Not only that, the average speed of an LRT train is faster than a bus in a mixed traffic.

For those who reside in the Choa Chu Kang/Bukit Panjang areas, I’m pretty sure you guys are aware of how bad traffic could be during peak hours. This means taking the bus is not exactly ideal during peak hours. The route to any one of the LRT station has shelters built for commuters which make it even more convenient especially during rainy days.

There have been measures which were already taken up to improve the reliability of the BPLRT system, such as replacing the rail brackets with fortified design at critical portions of the track, adjustment of motor controller settings for better power reliability and installation of camera systems on the under frame of four train cars to monitor the interface between trains and rails.

So overall, the scrapping of the BPLRT system has not been confirmed but do note that if the SMRT management do decide to take up the other 3 options, as more manpower would be required for the options, there may be a rise in the fares.

Featured image: smrt.com.sg

This article was first published on Goodyfeed.com

Bukit Panjang LRT Might Be Scrapped; Here’s what You Need to Know

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