Stations between Newton and Raffles Place on the North South Line (NSL) saw it’s second break down again during the peak hour morning crowd today (Feb 1) after yesterday’s disruption. According to a commuter, he took 20 minutes to travel 3 stations from Newton station to Dhoby Ghaut station.
Like yesterday, there was no service announcement today and commuters waited blindly for a train, flooding the platforms and forming queues hundreds of metres long. Even the government-created application to update service disruption was not functioning.
Screenshot from app
The government-controlled state media has unofficially collaborated with SMRT and stopped publishing news of train breakdowns, as part of the propaganda attempt. As suppression information of public concerns is not a crime, the state media and transport authorities will not be taken to task.
It appears the Singapore government is trying to improve rail reliability statistics, by choosing not to report service disruptions of more than 10 minutes. According to Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan, rail reliability has improved 49% based off his numbers, even though train breakdown is becoming more frequent.