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Singapore train service provider to be fined for July MRT breakdown

Xinhua, September 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

Singapore's Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced on Wednesday that it will impose a financial penalty of 5.4 million Singapore dollars (3.79 million U. S. dollars) on train services operator SMRT for the disruption in July this year.

Singapore's two main Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) lines came to a complete halt simultaneously on July 7. LTA stated that the system- wide disruption lasted for more than two hours during the evening peak period, which inconvenienced 413,000 commuters traveling on the MRT network's most heavily-utilized lines.

Following a media briefing on July 29, LTA, together with independent experts from Japan and Sweden, identified an ongoing water leak in the tunnel close to the insulator as a contributor to the weak electrical resistance.

LTA has concluded that the incident could have been prevented if SMRT had rectified the tunnel water seepage as required under LTA's Code of Practice for maintenance.

Based on SMRT's records, they had detected seepage in the tunnel section in question on its routine track patrols in mid- June 2015. However, these leaks were attended to only in end-July. The extent of mineral deposits on the trackside equipment also shows that SMRT's maintenance measures had been inadequate.

SMRT had also failed to meet requirements under the Code of Practice for incident management. They failed to inform LTA of the intermittent traction power tripping in a timely manner.

"After a full and comprehensive investigation, LTA concludes that the disruption is due to maintenance lapses by SMRT." said Chew Men Leong, Chief Executive of LTA. "We require SMRT to review and improve their maintenance regime to prevent future occurrences. "

LTA intends to penalize SMRT under Section 19 of the Rapid Transit Systems Act, and this is the highest financial penalty imposed on an operator since the two disruptions in December 2011, which affected about 221,000 commuters and for which SMRT was fined 2 million Singapore dollars. The fine will go to the Public Transport Fund to help needy families with their public transport expenditures.

To prevent a similar recurrence, SMRT has started replacing all third rail insulators since the incident, starting with insulators which have shown signs of electrical resistance weakness. LTA is also increasing its oversight of the operators' maintenance processes with more frequent audits. Endi