Recent train breakdowns: New rail reliability task force takes page out of familiar playbook

SINGAPORE – The recent spate of rail disruptions – and the response to it – has evoked a sense of deja vu.

Similar to the early 2010s and several periods thereafter, the reliability of train services has yet again been thrust into the spotlight, with the MRT and LRT networks hit by a string of disruptions in quick succession.

After three disruptions over four days in September – and at least 15 within three months –

a new task force comprising technical specialists

, as well as senior leaders from the rail operators and Land Transport Authority (LTA), will be formed to stem the decline in reliability.

As part of its remit, the task force will identify rail parts that need to be replaced, upgraded or maintained more often.

It will also carry out full technical audits of critical systems and review service recovery processes to reduce the blow of future disruptions to passengers.

This all sounds familiar.

For the past decade, the

renewal of rail systems

and parts,

better incident response

and

improved maintenance regimes

have all been key areas that the authorities and train operators have been working on and investing heavily in.

It was in 2011 that signs of deeper trouble began to surface in Singapore’s rail system.

That year was marked by multiple breakdowns that culminated in two North-South Line disruptions within days of each other, triggering a rare move by then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to convene a Committee of Inquiry.

The six-week probe resulted in profuse apologies, criticisms about cultural and systemic issues, as well as a long list of recommendations that were put into practice by a joint team comprising officers from LTA and rail operator SMRT – a task force of sorts.

The measures included stepping up audits and introducing new technology to allow for preventive maintenance, with the idea that faulty parts can be repaired before they fail if warning signs are detected early.

A

major upgrade of six core systems

on the North-South and East-West lines (NSEWL), Singapore’s oldest MRT lines, was also set in motion in 2012.

Costing $2.6 billion and taking more than a decade to complete, the two lines were given new signalling systems, power supply and trains as part of the exercise.

Additionally, SMRT was said to have reviewed the way it managed large-scale disruptions, growing its customer service team from 190 to 700 and training officers on crowd control.

But what was meant to herald a new dawn turned out to be a mixed bag, as the subsequent years were

blighted by major train incidents

, despite reliability figures improving threefold on paper from 2015 to 2017.

To further tackle Singapore’s train woes, rail operators were made to ramp up their engineering and maintenance resources, and about $1 billion was committed towards hardware replacement and upgrading.

At the same time, earlier work to overhaul the NSEWL began to pay dividends, vastly raising the rail reliability figure.

A target set in 2017 for all MRT lines in Singapore to be delayed only once in every one million kilometres of operations was met in 2019.

That put the Republic on a par with the Taipei Metro, which was considered best-in-class then and remains so.

Again, it seemed like Singapore was ready to leave its reliability issues behind, as the MRT network’s mean kilometres between failures soared to two million.

However, despite the earlier gains, fresh issues have dogged the rail network.

In September 2024,

a stretch of the East-West Line

was crippled for six days, affecting millions of passengers.

And between July 2024 and June, the MRT network’s reliability dropped to its lowest level since 2020.

In contrast, since 2019, the Taipei Metro’s reliability has continued to hit new highs.

Over the past three months, rail reliability woes here appear to have worsened.

The question now is whether the new task force can nip the recent fall-off in the bud.

While LTA did not disclose which industry specialists will be roped in, some fresh and objective perspectives could be valuable.

For example, in 2015, veteran public servant Tan Gee Paw was appointed rail transformation adviser to then Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan, to tap the water engineer’s outside expertise.

Credited with helping the rail system to turn a corner, it was Mr Tan who called for street-smart, sharp-eyed engineers – or what he termed the “rat catchers” – to go beyond the usual codes of practice, walk through the system, and spot risks that need urgent fixing.

Mr Tan said then that third-party consultants or external engineers should not be the only solution.

“They will use the same codes of practice and design practices, and often conclude the system is by and large intact and what happened was unfortunate and can easily be rectified,” he had said.

Compared with previous periods of frequent disruptions, the circumstances today have also evolved.

From an engineering perspective, all of Singapore’s MRT lines continue to perform above the target of one million kilometres between delays of five minutes or more.

But anecdotally, there is a growing gap between performance on paper and the passenger experience on the ground.

Singapore’s rail network has also become much larger, growing from 175km to 271km between 2011 and 2024.

An expanded rail network, with more stations and equipment, means there is more complexity and many more parts and systems that could fail.

LTA has also taken on a more direct role in the rail system than before.

Beyond its role as the rail regulator, the fact that the authority owns all the assets means it is also the one making decisions on which trains and systems to buy and how certain asset renewals are done.

So, the buck may not stop solely with the rail operators.

One upside is that the task force’s recommendations, due by the end of 2025, will not lack financial backing.

In March, the Government announced a $1 billion injection of funds over the next five years to improve the management of rail assets and boost the capabilities of the rail workforce.

But with billions already shelled out to raise rail reliability, Singapore will need to go beyond a familiar playbook to stamp out the “rats” that could still be lurking in the system.

Otherwise, it could risk further rail reliability woes down the line.