Number of MRT Breakdown Incidents between 2010 and 2013

Mr Png Eng Huat asked the Minister for Transport what is the number of breakdown incidents caused by mechanical, electrical and electronic infrastructure failures registered by each of the four main MRT lines from 2010 to 2013.

Mr Lui Tuck Yew: In the three-and-a-half years from 2010 to June 2013, there were a total of 32 major incidents which involve more than 30 minutes of service disruption on our MRT lines. Of these, 17 were on the North-South-East-West Line; nine on the Circle Line and six on the North East Line. If normalised as a proportion of total train-kilometres operated, for the North-South East-West Line and the Circle Line, the number of such service disruptions has come down from January 2011 to May 2013 1 . For the North East Line, due to the two incidents in June, we expect this proportion to go up slightly.

We do not classify breakdown incidents according to mechanical, electrical and electronic infrastructure failures. Instead, the majority of service disruptions result from technical faults in the trains, power system or signaling system. The way we classify MRT incidents helps to facilitate the monitoring of trends according to the system in which faults occur, for LTA and the operators to then develop targeted strategies to address these faults.

Note(s) to Question No(s) 59:

1 The data for train-kilometres operated in June is not yet available.