SINGAPORE: There is now a new task force to look into the issue of MRT reliability, following 15 disruptions in the last three months.
Sounds familiar?
Every minister responsible for transport has had to deal with the issue and faced questions about rail reliability, often after one too many breakdowns.
Current Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow, only five months into the job, faced a battery of questions from Members of Parliament (MPs) last month on the recent spate of incidents involving the North-South, East-West and the North East MRT lines, as well as the Sengkang-Punggol LRT.
He was in familiar company.
In 2012, then Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew admitted the shortcomings of the government and the Land Transport Authority in Parliament, as he addressed the findings of a Committee of Inquiry (COI) that had been set up to look into major disruptions that affected more than 200,000 commuters in December 2011.
The COI led to sweeping changes in how the main MRT operator, SMRT, maintained its trains and operating facilities, requiring it to conduct regular audits and to install preventive systems to predict problems proactively.
As for the Land Transport Authority (LTA), the committee said it had to re-look how it fulfilled its responsibility to ensure safe and quality travel, which would require it to have greater oversight of the operators.
In other words, it had to exercise its regulatory powers more effectively.
Mr Lui stepped down as minister in 2015, quitting politics altogether. In his resignation letter to then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Mr Lui cited the difficulties of addressing the public transport problems.
When Mr Khaw Boon Wan succeeded him as minister, he put improving the reliability of the train network as his topmost priority, and went about it with characteristic vigour and focus.
Billions of dollars have been spent on renewing the North-South and East-West lines, upgrading signalling equipment and a new monitoring system installed to detect potential problems.
During his five-year tenure, a widely used indicator known as the mean kilometre between failures (MKBF) improved from 133,000 in 2015 to 174,000 in 2016, 181,000 in 2017 and to 690,000 in 2018.
These were impressive gains.
But his record was also marred by major incidents, including the flooding of an MRT tunnel between Bishan and Braddell in 2017, affecting 250,000 commuters and leading to one of the longest service breakdowns.
A month later, 36 commuters were injured when a train collided with a stationary one in Joo Koon station.
When Mr Khaw faced parliamentarians a few days after the flooding incident to answer their questions he looked tired and acknowledged as much, noting that he and SMRT chairman Seah Moon Ming had slept barely 20 hours since the flooding incident three days earlier.
“I have done a lot in the past two years and I have aged five years,” he said.
Subsequent ministers after him have not been spared. Mr Ong Ye Kung apologised to commuters in 2020 when some of them had to alight between stops to walk to the nearest one after a power failure affected 36 stations.
Mr Chee Hong Tat was the minister in charge when the worst breakdown in MRT’s history took place in September 2024, affecting 500,000 train journeys on each day of the six-day disruption.
Now, most of the improvements in the MKBF numbers that had been achieved under Mr Khaw have been rolled back, though they remain above the 1 million target.
It is in the context of this troublesome past that the latest incidents ought to be viewed.
If every minister has had to deal with this issue in a major way, it is not an ad hoc problem.
I think Mr Lam Sheau Kai, president of SMRT Trains, was wrong and too quick to say, of the latest incidents, that they were isolated cases and "not systemic issues" across the rail network.
He may be right at a purely technical level, but MRT breakdowns should not be viewed merely as such, given their history.
I prefer the approach of Mr Siow, who told MPs that part of the reason he had formed the task force was because he wanted to “take a harder look to satisfy ourselves that there is no systemic problem”.
He is right to do so, but the way the task force is set up may not be adequate as it is too narrowly focused.
According to news reports, it will review the recent incidents to identify components that may require replacement, upgrading or increased maintenance, including examining whether the renewal programme for the North East Line (NEL) power system - which is run by SBS Transit - should be brought forward.
It will also do a full technical audit of the maintenance and operation of critical systems.
These are necessary checks that should be carried out.
But if the government wants to satisfy itself that there are no systemic issues, it has to go beyond these engineering matters and take a good hard look at the organisations themselves - LTA and the two rail operators SMRT and SBS Transit - to ensure they are up to the job at hand.
In effect, this was what the 2012 COI did, and it had some choice words to say about both of them.
In particular, it faulted the LTA for not doing enough to regulate and to audit the work done by train operators.
The LTA has a lot on its plate: It designs and builds the entire MRT system, decides which operator to hand over to run the trains, and oversees the chosen one, including how well it carries out maintenance, to ensure safe and reliable travel for commuters.
In other words, it is involved in auditing a system it had designed and approved, which might present an inherent conflict of interest.
With such a heavy load, it is pertinent to ask if the LTA is adequately staffed to fulfil its responsibility and whether its oversight functions that were identified as being inadequate have been sufficiently strengthened.
Ultimately, this issue concerns the relationship between the LTA and the rail operators. While they need to work closely, there can be no question as to who is the boss.
There is a lesson in the past on this. When I was a young officer at the then Ministry of Communications in the 1980s, issues regarding bus services were handled by a unit called the Bus Services Licensing Authority (BSLA) staffed by middle-ranking officers who were mainly technicians. Engineers were hard to come by in those days.
But the chairman of the BSLA was the top man in the ministry; its permanent secretary, Mr Sim Kee Boon, also then Head of the Civil Service, a ranking heavyweight.
Hence when a technician at BSLA summoned the managing director of the Singapore Bus Services, which ran practically all the bus services, for a meeting, he would drop everything to attend.
The BSLA had clout because of the person who headed it, and it needed his authority to be able to make sure the bus company did what the authorities wanted it to.
I wonder if this is the case today.
As for SMRT, it was said by the COI that it had lost its way as an engineering company, as reflected in the number of engineers it employed.
Has this problem been satisfactorily addressed?
It should be noted that train operation is highly specialised and requires engineers with domain knowledge, including those at senior levels.
These questions, which strike at the heart of the two organisations, cannot be answered by a task force comprising people from within, even if they are advised by outside technical experts.
When the matter is about whether LTA is performing its regulatory functions effectively, it is best done by an independent body that can look at the issues objectively and from a detached perspective.
It should not be done by a task force chaired by the chief executive of the same organisation, as is now the case. It is asking too much of him, acting as its head and at the same time reviewing whether he is doing it well enough.
An independent group will be better placed to do this job.
It has been more than 13 years since the COI raised these questions, and it is timely to ask whether its findings have been addressed, especially since the problem keeps recurring.
Han Fook Kwang is a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. He was a board member of the Land Transport Authority from 1999 to 2005 and a former veteran newspaper editor.
Continue reading...
Sounds familiar?
Every minister responsible for transport has had to deal with the issue and faced questions about rail reliability, often after one too many breakdowns.
Current Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow, only five months into the job, faced a battery of questions from Members of Parliament (MPs) last month on the recent spate of incidents involving the North-South, East-West and the North East MRT lines, as well as the Sengkang-Punggol LRT.
He was in familiar company.
In 2012, then Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew admitted the shortcomings of the government and the Land Transport Authority in Parliament, as he addressed the findings of a Committee of Inquiry (COI) that had been set up to look into major disruptions that affected more than 200,000 commuters in December 2011.
The COI led to sweeping changes in how the main MRT operator, SMRT, maintained its trains and operating facilities, requiring it to conduct regular audits and to install preventive systems to predict problems proactively.
As for the Land Transport Authority (LTA), the committee said it had to re-look how it fulfilled its responsibility to ensure safe and quality travel, which would require it to have greater oversight of the operators.
In other words, it had to exercise its regulatory powers more effectively.
Mr Lui stepped down as minister in 2015, quitting politics altogether. In his resignation letter to then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Mr Lui cited the difficulties of addressing the public transport problems.
When Mr Khaw Boon Wan succeeded him as minister, he put improving the reliability of the train network as his topmost priority, and went about it with characteristic vigour and focus.
Billions of dollars have been spent on renewing the North-South and East-West lines, upgrading signalling equipment and a new monitoring system installed to detect potential problems.
During his five-year tenure, a widely used indicator known as the mean kilometre between failures (MKBF) improved from 133,000 in 2015 to 174,000 in 2016, 181,000 in 2017 and to 690,000 in 2018.
These were impressive gains.
But his record was also marred by major incidents, including the flooding of an MRT tunnel between Bishan and Braddell in 2017, affecting 250,000 commuters and leading to one of the longest service breakdowns.
A month later, 36 commuters were injured when a train collided with a stationary one in Joo Koon station.
When Mr Khaw faced parliamentarians a few days after the flooding incident to answer their questions he looked tired and acknowledged as much, noting that he and SMRT chairman Seah Moon Ming had slept barely 20 hours since the flooding incident three days earlier.
“I have done a lot in the past two years and I have aged five years,” he said.
NOT AN AD HOC PROBLEM
Subsequent ministers after him have not been spared. Mr Ong Ye Kung apologised to commuters in 2020 when some of them had to alight between stops to walk to the nearest one after a power failure affected 36 stations.
Mr Chee Hong Tat was the minister in charge when the worst breakdown in MRT’s history took place in September 2024, affecting 500,000 train journeys on each day of the six-day disruption.
Now, most of the improvements in the MKBF numbers that had been achieved under Mr Khaw have been rolled back, though they remain above the 1 million target.
It is in the context of this troublesome past that the latest incidents ought to be viewed.
If every minister has had to deal with this issue in a major way, it is not an ad hoc problem.
I think Mr Lam Sheau Kai, president of SMRT Trains, was wrong and too quick to say, of the latest incidents, that they were isolated cases and "not systemic issues" across the rail network.
He may be right at a purely technical level, but MRT breakdowns should not be viewed merely as such, given their history.
I prefer the approach of Mr Siow, who told MPs that part of the reason he had formed the task force was because he wanted to “take a harder look to satisfy ourselves that there is no systemic problem”.
He is right to do so, but the way the task force is set up may not be adequate as it is too narrowly focused.
According to news reports, it will review the recent incidents to identify components that may require replacement, upgrading or increased maintenance, including examining whether the renewal programme for the North East Line (NEL) power system - which is run by SBS Transit - should be brought forward.
It will also do a full technical audit of the maintenance and operation of critical systems.
These are necessary checks that should be carried out.
Related:
BEYOND ENGINEERING ISSUES
But if the government wants to satisfy itself that there are no systemic issues, it has to go beyond these engineering matters and take a good hard look at the organisations themselves - LTA and the two rail operators SMRT and SBS Transit - to ensure they are up to the job at hand.
In effect, this was what the 2012 COI did, and it had some choice words to say about both of them.
In particular, it faulted the LTA for not doing enough to regulate and to audit the work done by train operators.
The LTA has a lot on its plate: It designs and builds the entire MRT system, decides which operator to hand over to run the trains, and oversees the chosen one, including how well it carries out maintenance, to ensure safe and reliable travel for commuters.
In other words, it is involved in auditing a system it had designed and approved, which might present an inherent conflict of interest.
With such a heavy load, it is pertinent to ask if the LTA is adequately staffed to fulfil its responsibility and whether its oversight functions that were identified as being inadequate have been sufficiently strengthened.
Ultimately, this issue concerns the relationship between the LTA and the rail operators. While they need to work closely, there can be no question as to who is the boss.
There is a lesson in the past on this. When I was a young officer at the then Ministry of Communications in the 1980s, issues regarding bus services were handled by a unit called the Bus Services Licensing Authority (BSLA) staffed by middle-ranking officers who were mainly technicians. Engineers were hard to come by in those days.
But the chairman of the BSLA was the top man in the ministry; its permanent secretary, Mr Sim Kee Boon, also then Head of the Civil Service, a ranking heavyweight.
Hence when a technician at BSLA summoned the managing director of the Singapore Bus Services, which ran practically all the bus services, for a meeting, he would drop everything to attend.
The BSLA had clout because of the person who headed it, and it needed his authority to be able to make sure the bus company did what the authorities wanted it to.
I wonder if this is the case today.
As for SMRT, it was said by the COI that it had lost its way as an engineering company, as reflected in the number of engineers it employed.
Has this problem been satisfactorily addressed?
It should be noted that train operation is highly specialised and requires engineers with domain knowledge, including those at senior levels.
These questions, which strike at the heart of the two organisations, cannot be answered by a task force comprising people from within, even if they are advised by outside technical experts.
When the matter is about whether LTA is performing its regulatory functions effectively, it is best done by an independent body that can look at the issues objectively and from a detached perspective.
It should not be done by a task force chaired by the chief executive of the same organisation, as is now the case. It is asking too much of him, acting as its head and at the same time reviewing whether he is doing it well enough.
An independent group will be better placed to do this job.
It has been more than 13 years since the COI raised these questions, and it is timely to ask whether its findings have been addressed, especially since the problem keeps recurring.
Han Fook Kwang is a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. He was a board member of the Land Transport Authority from 1999 to 2005 and a former veteran newspaper editor.
Continue reading...