Record of Incidents on MRT and LRT Trains Such As Sudden Acceleration and Closing of Doors without Warning

Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for Transport (a) for each year over the past five years, how many instances have occurred of MRT or LRT trains (i) undergoing irregular and sudden acceleration and (ii) train doors closing without warning; and (b) whether there is any mechanism for collating data on such incidents if they are not reported by commuters.

The Second Minister for Transport (Mr Ng Chee Meng) (for the Minister for Transport): Mr Speaker, over the past five years, the majority of cases of irregular and sudden acceleration, and train doors closing without warning, occurred on the North-South and East-West Lines (NSEWL), which are our oldest lines. Commuters reported an average of 20 cases of irregular and sudden acceleration per year on MRT trains and two cases per year on LRT trains. The abrupt changes in speed stemmed from temporary speed restrictions due to on-going track maintenance and renewal works.

Over the same period, commuters reported an average of 125 of cases of train doors closing without warning per year for MRT trains, and less than one case per year for LRT trains. The NSEWL are the only lines where the train doors are closed manually by the train captain on board. This introduces an element of human error. The new Communications-Based Train Control signalling system will address this by automating the announcement and closing of train doors.

Reports by commuters are the primary means by which data on such occurrences is collated. Every report is thoroughly investigated.

Mr Leon Perera (Non-Constituency Member): I thank the Minister for his comprehensive reply. Just one supplementary question: will the Ministry consider publishing such data at regular intervals in future as a KPI of the performance of the system in this regard?

Mr Ng Chee Meng: MOT publishes different sets of data. In time, we will consider publishing such data as well. We are upgrading our train systems, as the Member well knows. The signalling project will bring better reliability to our train systems. We are also renewing the old trains on the NSEWL to a tune of about 66 trains in the coming years. This will up the reliability and the commuter experiences.