MRT SYSTEM (Problems)

Mr Ng Kah Ting asked the Minister for Communications and Information since the operation of the Mass Rapid Transit system, what problems have been encountered and what remedial steps have been taken to overcome them.

The Minister for Communications and Information (Dr Yeo Ning Hong): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Member for Punggol has raised a question which is topical and of great interest to Singaporeans. Coincident with the Member's submission of that question in late December 1987, the SMRT put out a press release which answered the question in detail. Let me answer the question very briefly and I will ask the Clerk to circulate the press release which contains all the details. Some of the details have already been carried in the press.

Sir, the MRT is a totally new transport system for us in Singapore. The public has embraced it enthusiastically. Because we are able to bring forward the start-up into the school holidays and in time for the festive season, the response from Singaporeans has been overwhelming. To date, a total of about eight million passenger trips have already been made on the MRT. This averages about three passenger trips for every Singaporean. Currently, the MRT makes about 140,000 passenger trips per working day and averages about 200,000 on a week-end.

Sir, as I indicated some months ago before the start-up of the system, we expect some teething problems for such a complex system. Indeed, there have been some teething problems. Most of the problems are related to equipment failure because of extremely heavy or improper use. Others are due to the general public being unfamiliar with the ticketing machines, the automatic gates, the escalators and the operation of the trains. These teething problems led to some congestion in the more popular stations, particularly during peak hours. Overall, the teething problems have been relatively minor. For example, the problem with stored value tickets is approximately 0.2% of all tickets issued; misalignment of train doors, approximately 0.1%; train delays exceeding two minutes, approximately 2.6%.

Sir, MRTC and SMRT have been working very closely with the engineers of the contractors to resolve all these problems. I expect the equipment problems to be also resolved within the near future. I expect also with more commuters buying stored value tickets that the queues that we saw prior to Christmas will be things of the past. As passengers become more familiar with the system, the queues will eventually disappear. Indeed, reports recently indicate that there are no more queues practically throughout the entire day.

Sir, I would like to urge members of the public to continue to give SMRT their full cooperation and understanding and to take these teething problems in their stride. MRTC and SMRT value their feedback. With the support and understanding of the public, we have built a system that I believe all Singaporeans are proud of. Let us help operate it well, so that we can be proud of the system for a long time to come.

Mr Heng Chiang Meng: Sir, with respect to MRT, may I ask the Minister whether, instead of sterile names like North, East and West lines, he could change them to more colourful names like Nee Soon line, Bedok line and Jurong line.

Dr Yeo Ning Hong: Sir, a lot of consideration has gone into it and the decisions have already been taken.