NORTH EAST MRT LINE

The following Question stood in the name of Mr Chiam See Tong -

Mr Chiam See Tong: To ask the Minister for Transport when will the North East Line be opened.

Mr Steve Chia Kiah Hong: Question No. 15, Sir.

The Minister for Transport (Mr Yeo Cheow Tong): Sir, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) handed over the North East Line (NEL) system to the operator, SBS Transit (SBST), on 16th December last year. Since then, SBST has been carrying out trial runs of the system to prepare for passenger service. LTA is working very closely with the operator to fine-tune the system to improve its performance and reliability.

Based on the current progress, we expect that the operator will be ready to operate NEL for passenger service in April this year.

Mr Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir): Sir, will the Minister please tell us whether the rates of the fares for the North East Line will be the same as the other lines?

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: Sir, the fare structure for NEL has not been finalised yet. The operator will need to submit their fare proposals to the PTC for approval, and the fares will eventually be decided upon by the PTC after taking into consideration the justifications from the operator and the impact on the commuters. Mr Chiam may wish to note that the NEL line, being fully underground, is a more expensive line to operate compared to the other MRT lines. So, the fare structure is not likely to be identical to the current MRT system. I am sure the PTC, in approving the fare structure, will take this into consideration.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Does the Minister agree that, whilst the line may be more expensive to construct, as it is underground, but it is also driverless? So, I would expect that the operator would save a lot of manpower costs. Would he ask the PTC to take this into consideration for the fare structure?

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: As I said just now, the PTC would take into consideration all the different justifications given by the operator. However, when I said that the NEL line is more expensive, what I meant was that the NEL line is totally underground and, being totally underground, the stations are going to be more expensive to operate because of the aircondition system, etc. There will be some savings on the drivers but the system will also be a lot more complicated because, being driverless, the control systems, and everything else, will be more complicated and the maintenance cost, in effect, will counter the savings for the drivers.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: If that is the case, then why driverless? There is no saving.

Mr Speaker: Mr Yeo, I do not think you need to answer that question.