SMRT was initially told to pay S$3 million fine for EWL disruption
SMRT’s fine for the six-day East-West Line (EWL) disruption last September has been lowered to S$2.4 million, from an initial S$3 million.
However, the public transport operator must invest at least S$600,000 in improving reliability, said the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in a statement on Friday (25 July).
Source: SMRT on Facebook
LTA lowered SMRT fine based on its representations
LTA had told SMRT on 30 May that it intended to fine it S$3 million and gave the transport service provider two weeks to respond.
SMRT filed representations on 6 June, which were taken into consideration by LTA.
Following this, LTA has decided to fine SMRT S$2.4 million — S$600,000 less than the initial amount.
The amount will go to the Public Transport Fund to help lower-income families with their public transport expenditures.
SMRT faced ‘considerable challenges’ in overhauling old trains
LTA decided to reduce the fine as it considered the “considerable challenges” faced by SMRT in overhauling the Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) trains.
The first-generation KHI trains, which came into service in the 1980s, have a total service life of 38 years, said then Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat in Parliament last October. One of these trains was responsible for the EWL disruption last September.
Source: SMRT on Facebook
All the KHI trains are slated to be replaced with new trains by the end of 2026, before they reach their 38-year service mark.
EWL disruption may not have happened if not for Covid-19: SMRT
Elaborating on the challenges in a Facebook post, SMRT Trains President Lam Sheau Kai said it experienced difficulties in securing the necessary spare parts, in particular.
This was due to global supply chain disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, it noted, adding:
Had the pandemic not occurred, all KHI trains would have been replaced by the new R151 trains as planned, and the incident might have been prevented.
SMRT had previously explained in June that the global supply chain disruptions delayed the delivery of both new trains and spare parts, making it harder to carry out additional overhauls after 2018.
SMRT must invest S$600K to improve reliability
LTA has additionally issued a direction to SMRT to invest a minimum of S$600,000 to improve service reliability for commuters.
This must be used to strengthen its capabilities and address areas of improvement from the incident, it said.
Source: SMRT on Facebook
Acknowledging this, SMRT said workforce development and upskilling “have long been their (our) core priorities”.
Thus, the directive is “fully aligned with their (our) ongoing commitment to invest in our staff”.
To that end, SMRT pledged to:
- Strengthen direct engagement with original equipment manufacturers (OEM) of trains and systems
- Deepen technical and engineering expertise through closer collaboration with these partners
- Support the secondment of LTA engineers to SMRT — an initiative introduced in 2018
SMRT also promised that the KHI trains would be fully phased out by September this year, with the new fleet of trains progressively rolled out.
SMRT fine for EWL disruption is 2nd-highest incurred by rail operator
The EWL disruption last year caused train service from Jurong East to Buona Vista to be suspended from 25 to 30 Sept — affecting about 2.6 million passengers.
Though it has been lowered, the fine of S$2.4 million is the second-highest amount that a rail operator has been fined.
The record is the S$5.4 million fine that SMRT incurred after both the EWL and North-South Line went down for more than two hours during peak hour in July 2015.
Mr Lam said SMRT “remains committed to delivering safe, reliable, and customer-centric rail services” and will continue to collaborate with leading global metro operators to raise service standards.
Also read: ‘It’s rather annoying’: East-West Line disruption severely affected 49% of people polled
‘It’s rather annoying’: East-West Line disruption severely affected 49% of people polled
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Featured image adapted from SMRT on Facebook and Facebook.
