LTA Apologises for Recent Consecutive MRT Breakdowns, Promises to Uphold Rail Reliability

What’s worse than one MRT breakdown? Two MRT breakdowns.

And two breakdowns did happen—consecutively, no less—over the past two days, with the North East Line (NEL) facing disruptions on Sunday (28 Mar) and the North South Line (NSL) yesterday (29 Mar).

You can find out more about the train service disruptions here and here. But let’s just say that as a commuter on the East West Line, I’m hoping for the best today (30 Mar).

Anyway, the situation is exasperating enough to us commuters that the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has stepped up and issued an apology, calling the successive breakdowns “very unfortunate and frustrating”. 

While it notes that the incidents occurred for unrelated reasons, the LTA still commits to “dive into root causes whenever incidents like these happen and take firm actions”, according to CNA. 

Examples of these actions include overhauling the overhead catenary system; its malfunction led to Sunday (28 Mar)’s breakdowns. A programme is underway to replace existing insulators in the system with a more reliable design, as the LTA explained. 

It expects these replacements to complete by June, pledging that “maintaining rail reliability will be a continuous task”.

Hopefully, the statement will boost commuters’ confidence in the train system. Though with the alternatives being two hours daily on a bus and dishing out six figures for a car, we don’t really have a lot of choice.

How Reliable Is The MRT Exactly?

Despite these high-profile, high-impact, and high-blood-pressure-inducing breakdowns, the Singapore MRT is actually not doing so badly as a whole, especially in recent years.

As The Straits Times reported last July, the MRT network achieved a mean kilometres between failures (MKBF) of 1.6 million train-km. 

In case the name of the statistic is not literal enough, it means MRT trains will travel an average of 1.6 million kilometres before they encounter a delay of more than five minutes. 

This standard of rail reliability matches some of the world’s best, like Hong Kong and Taipei. It is also more than 10 times better than in 2015 at the height of rail disruptions, when the MKBF for Singapore was only 133,000.

Wonder how the recent spate of incidents will impact that, though.

However, some have noted that this rapid improvement in reliability came from billions in infrastructure upgrades after the MRT fiasco of the early 2010s forced the government to undertake intensive action. These spending levels, as the South China Morning Post cautioned in 2019, may not be sustainable. 

Let’s just hope our trains won’t go from rolling stock to laughing stock again after there’s no more need to spend.

LTA, SMRT, Or SBS?

You are probably confused at this point. Out of all these acronyms, just who exactly is in charge of the trains?

Train operations in Singapore are outlined by the New Rail Financing Framework (NRFF), first implemented in 2011 for the Downtown Line (DTL) and gradually incorporating the rest of the rail network. 

Under the NRFF, train operators are given a 15-year licence to operate a rail line after a successful bid, according to the LTA. However, operating systems like trains and signalling systems are owned by the government, with private rail operators like SBS responsible for maintenance.

So, in short, the government now owns the trains, “to ensure more timely investments in capacity expansion, replacement and upgrading of the assets.” 

Oof. Who sees the casual shade?

Feature Image: Adwo / Shutterstock.com