Singapore commuters suffered the largest MRT breakdown today (June 28) with 33 stations – including 8 interchange stations – along the North-South and East-West lines affected since 5.15pm.
Public transport operator SMRT claimed that a signally fault has occurred on its newly-installed train signalling system on the North-South line, and that passengers are expected to see delays for at least 30 minutes. The train delay became a no-service twenty minutes later on 5.30pm, creating chaos in the city vicinity at the peak hours. SMRT then claimed that train services resumed at 6.10pm but advised a 15 minute delay.
At 5.22pm, five stations along the East-West lines from Joo Koon to Tuas Link also stopped train service which SMRT also blamed on “signalling fault”. SMRT issued a fake news on 5.56pm claiming that services resumed, but a reporter from TodayOnline checked that one of the affected stations were still closed at 6.30pm. Services only resumed at 6.48pm.
An estimated 2 million passengers were affected by the train breakdown today, which is the largest breakdown affecting most number of stations in history.
Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan, Second Transport Minister Ng Chee Meng and SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek are unavailable for comments on today’s incident. Despite increasing train breakdowns, the Land Transport Authority and Second Transport Minister Ng Chee Meng claimed that rail reliability has increased. The Public Transport Council will be announcing a fare hike this year due to “improved rail reliability”.