Singapore saw its 4th train service breakdown in the past 3 weeks today (June 13) with the East-West Line down for more than 4 hours.
According SMRT, a circuit track fault occurred at Buona Vista station at 8.13am, and services recovered only at 12.55pm. SMRT made four inaccurate revisions of delay advice – 15 mins, 25 mins, 20 mins and 10 mins, resulting in greater confusion and frustrations.
Since the new signalling system was installed on May 26, there has been three previous faults that SMRT covered up as “system checks”. The transport operator only corrected the “checks” to “faults” in a press release following public condemnation over the fake news.
Based on the most recent train reliability report, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) claimed that reliability has increased “two-fold” for the quarter of 2017. Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan has also earlier signalled his intention to raise train fares because of “improved service”.