The disruption to East-West Line MRT services affected more than 2.1 million passengers over six days. - ST
SINGAPORE: The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has begun investigations into a major six-day disruption to train services between Jurong East and Buona Vista MRT stations on the East-West Line.
The probe will cover areas such as the root cause of a component falling off a train’s undercarriage that triggered the severe disruption from Sept 25 to 30, as well as fault detection procedures and service recovery efforts.
The investigations are expected to be completed in a few months, and the findings will be made public, the authority said on Oct 2.
LTA said it will also appoint an expert advisory panel to review the findings and give technical advice.
First, the regulator will look into the root cause of why an axle box – a component on a train’s undercarriage – fell off the faulty train by doing a forensic study into the nature of the axle box failure and identifying other contributing factors that could have led to the incident.
Second, it will examine the fault detection and incident handling procedures to find out if appropriate actions were taken.
It will do so by reviewing current procedures and proposing measures that will improve the detection of such faults, minimise disruptions to services and prevent damage to rail infrastructure.
Third, LTA will review the service recovery efforts, as well as mitigating measures during the disruption, to determine if the responses taken by rail operator SMRT were fast and comprehensive enough.
These include the speed of the roll-out of bridging bus services that ferried passengers between affected stations and the effectiveness of announcements on the disruption. It will also look at the clarity of guidance given to commuters on other travel options such as bridging bus and shuttle train services, as well as overall crowd management.
The expert panel that is to be appointed by LTA will be chaired by Malcolm Dobell, the former head of train systems at the London Underground, who has more than 45 years of experience in rail operations and maintenance.
Also on the panel are five other experts from Singapore and abroad.
They include Dr Tony Lee, operations and innovation director at Hong Kong public transport operator MTR Corporation, and Chen Chao, deputy general manager of the vehicle branch at the Shanghai Shentong Metro Group.
The other members are Chew Tai Chong, director and global rail leader at consultancy Arup in the United Kingdom; Associate Professor Gan Hiong Yap, a maintenance engineering expert from the Singapore Institute of Technology; and Professor Manoj Gupta, a material science expert at the National University of Singapore with a mechanical engineering background.
“As part of the investigations, LTA will gather the facts, interview staff involved, review records and evidence, and consult with the expert advisory panel,” the agency added.
Separately, the Ministry of Transport said on Oct 2 that its Transport Safety Investigation Bureau will also carry out an independent safety investigation into the disruption.
In a Facebook post, Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat said the recent disruption affected many passengers and caused substantial damage to rail infrastructure.
LTA will carry out a thorough investigation to ascertain what happened and identify areas for improvement, he added on Oct 2.
Affecting more than 2.1 million passengers over six days, the rail disruption along the East-West Line was one of the worst in the 37-year history of Singapore’s MRT system.
It was triggered by a faulty first-generation Kawasaki Heavy Industries train, which had been in service for more than 35 years. The train suffered a fault near Clementi station at about 9am on Sept 25.
While it was being withdrawn from service to the Ulu Pandan Depot, an axle box dropped onto the tracks near Dover station. Axles connect the wheels of a train.
This caused the wheels of the undercarriage to derail, resulting in 46 rail fractures such as cracks or chips across a 2.55km stretch near Dover and Clementi stations.
Among the trackside equipment that was damaged were three point machines that divert trains onto different tracks, stretches of the third rail that supplies power to trains, and power cables.
As a result, extensive repairs and replacement works had to be done, followed by tests of the tracks and trackside equipment to ensure passenger safety, before services were restored on Oct 1. - The Straits Times/ANN
