SMRT apologises for Friday night’s Circle Line disruption caused by faulty ATC channel card
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Commuters at the Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station on Friday night.
ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
SINGAPORE – Transport operator SMRT has apologised to affected commuters following Friday night’s disruption of the Circle Line.
In an update on SMRT’s Facebook on Saturday, the transport operator said that the fault was traced to a faulty automatic train control (ATC) channel card.
ATC channel cards help to manage the movement and control of the driverless trains in their respective sectors on the Circle Line.
Train service in the downtown section of the Circle Line was affected twice on Friday night by a signalling system fault, which delayed trips at stations between Marina Bay/Dhoby Ghaut and Mountbatten.
In a Facebook post on Friday, SMRT said that the first incident happened at 8.40pm and the problem was rectified by 9.10pm, but the fault recurred at 10pm.
Commuters were told to add 30 minutes of travelling time between the Dhoby Ghaut/Marina Bay and Paya Lebar stations during the first incident.
During the second incident, SMRT announced that there was no train service, in addition to adding 30 minutes of travelling time between the Dhoby Ghaut and Esplanade stations, Marina Bay and Bayfront stations, and Mountbatten and Paya Lebar stations.
SMRT said that after replacement of the faulty card, the system could restart and train services resumed progressively.
However, the fault recurred an hour later and persisted, even after three sets of ATC channel cards from French company Alstom were used to recover the ATC.
SMRT, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and Alstom engineers were on site, and worked through the night to diagnose the ATC failure, said SMRT.
It added that the engineers successfully isolated the faulty cards and recovered the ATC before Saturday morning’s service began.
The cards and faulty components will be sent to France for further investigations, SMRT said, adding that it will continue to work closely with LTA and Alstom to monitor the performance of the new cards.
SMRT said: “We apologise to all affected commuters and thank them for their patience and understanding.”
SMRT said on Sunday that it has requested for Alstom to fly in their signalling specialists to assist with the investigation and strengthen the support for the ATC system.
