3 MRT disruptions on NSL, EWL & TEL on Sep. 14, 16 & 17 unrelated & not systemic: SMRT President

The three MRT disruption incidents that occurred on Sep. 14, 16 and 17 are "unrelated", said Lam Sheau Kai, president of SMRT Trains.

The three incidents occurred on the North-South Line, East-West Line and Thomson-East Coast Line respectively.

Speaking to the media at a briefing on Sep. 17, Lam said the three incidents are "isolated cases" rather than "systemic issues across the rail network".

"In each situation, our staff acted swiftly to prioritise commuter safety, deploy recovery measures and provide free bus bridging services," he said.

Future areas of focus

Lam said that SMRT will work closely with the Land Transport Authority (LTA) on three areas moving forward.

Firstly, they plan to carry out a "detailed assessment" of their rail assets.

"As part of our commitment to long term reliability, we will strengthen life-cycle management of our rail system, accelerate asset renewal and upgrading where needed," he said.

Secondly, they will also jointly carry out technical audits of critical systems to identify gaps, areas for improvement and response procedure..

These include power signalling, train and track system audits, Lam added.

Thirdly, Lam highlighted that when handling incidents, they apply a safety- first approach for both commuters and staff.

Safety precautionary measures, which typically take two to three hours, are necessary to ensure the protection of everyone, he explained.

However, they recognise the inconvenience these incidents may cause, and as such, are looking into shortening the recovering time.

Lam also acknowledged that there is room for improvement for ground communications during the incidents.

SMRT has started piloting enhanced crowd management measures from September onwards to further support commuters, and staff are now equipped with improved tools to help guide passengers, particularly at major interchanges during peak periods.

"We remain committed to working closely with LTA and our original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners to strengthen rail reliability through robust life-cycle management, timely asset renewal and continuous improvements, so that commuters can enjoy safer and more reliable journeys."

TEL disruption

A signalling fault between Woodlands North and Bayshore stations on the Thomson-East Coast Line affected train services at around 7:10am on Sep. 17.

To minimise inconvienience, services were suspended for about 30 minutes.

Free bus services were provided, and commuters were advised to use the North-South Line, Downtown Line, or Circle Line.

Lam said during the briefing that SMRT is working with the OEMs and LTA to investigate the signalling fault which required a system restart.

EWL disruption

The TEL incident came after another train disruption occurred between Aljunied and Tanah Merah stations on the East-West Line on Sep. 16.

SMRT later updated that “a fault in the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) system caused a signalling failure” at around 11pm on Sep. 16, resulting in a disruption to train service on the six-station stretch.

Lam said preliminary investigations showed that "the fault was isolated and not systemic".

"A faulty component in the power system caused a signalling failure that disrupted services between Aljunied and Tanah Merah stations," he explained.

The component has since been isolated and train services resumed as normal this morning (Sep. 17).

NSL disruption

Just two days prior on Sep. 14, a train fault occurred along the North-South Line, resulting in a 40-minute disruption in the afternoon.

Lam said the recovery required a 12-car push-out operation, which took time before normal train services could resume.

"We needed to disembark commuters from the faulty train and coupled it with the rescue train to bring it back to depot for checks," he explained.

At the start of the month, there was also a three-station disruption between Marina Bay and Promenade on the Circle Line on Sep. 1, and a 45-minute disruption on a five-station stretch of the North-South Line on Sep. 2.

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