About 19,000 commuters were affected by the peak-hour delay due to a train fault which occurred on the North-South line on Monday morning, said train operator SMRT at a briefing.

The delay occurred at about 8.10am on a south-bound train from Sembawang to Marina Bay MRT station. A 12-car push-out was deployed to move the faulty train towards Ang Mo Kio station. About 1,800 passengers were detrained at the station.

SMRT chief executive Desmond Kuek said the timing of Monday's incident, which came days after fare increases were announced last Thursday, was "unfortunate". Operating costs have gone up because repair and maintenance were needed to keep the system at a high level of sustainability and reliability, said Mr Kuek.

He noted that train withdrawals have come down from 3.3 to 2.2 per 100,000km.

Source: SMRT

Compiled by Derrick Ho