In the latest propaganda effort to improve worsening public perception of the public transport train system, Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) cherry-picked statistics of a 3-month period and declared that train reliability has improved two-fold.
According to state propaganda media Channel News Asia (CNA), the train system is now twice as reliable than before:
“Train services in Singapore were more reliable in the first three months of this year.In the first quarter, trains travelled an average of 354,000km before encountering a delay of more than five minutes. This is more than double the figure for 2016, which saw trains clocking an average 174,000km.”
In his interview with the state media, Deputy Chief Executive of LTA Chua Chong Kheng claimed that the worst-performing train line, the East-West line, has saw an improvement of 50% in the first three months of 2017:
“Improvements were seen across all five lines, with the Downtown Line clocking the highest mileage before a delay, at 1.03 million km. By contrast, the worst performing line was the East-West Line, although its record improved by close to 50 per cent – from travelling 145,000km between delays in 2016, to 215,000km in the first quarter of this year.”
Train reliability indicators like the mean kilometres travelled per disruption is measured only yearly, but the LTA banked on the unawareness of the general public to pull of the propaganda message. Singapore’s rail reliability is the worst among comparable societies like Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong, with reliability at less than a third of the average train performance in Taipei.
The above propaganda message is however required for an impending fare raise that Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan has earlier signaled.
Read: Minister Khaw Boon Wan lie to justify fare raise: Public transport service improving