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One of Desmond Quack's kaki at RSAF, spend 20 years at RSAF, knows nothing about trains and got parachuted into MRT by Dessie, now says "We were just not able to cope". with the train failures. You think? Good job PAP.
MRT disruption on its own
"We were just not able to cope", says SMRT's managing director of trains Lee Ling Wee of the scale of disruption to the North-South and East-West Lines that affected 250,000 commuters on Jul 7.
SINGAPORE: It was a tough call to stop train service during a breakdown that affected Singapore's two main MRT lines last week, but it was the lesser of two evils, said SMRT's managing director of trains Lee Ling Wee on Tuesday (Jul 14).
Mr Lee was on Channel 5's Talking Point with the Land Transport Authority's (LTA) chief executive Chew Men Leong and Professor Lee Der Horng, from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore.
Mr Lee said he wanted to do whatever he could to keep the trains running. However, if service continued running, there would be the risk of trains being stuck in between stations, and passengers would have to evacuate onto the tracks.
“That was a very dreadful moment,” he said. “It was peak hour and 250,000 commuters will be inconvenienced, among which we have Muslim Singaporeans who are going back to break fast. But what is the alternative? The alternative is to continue, which means it may get more trains stuck between stations.
“One train has about 1,500 passengers and if you have 10 trains stuck between stations, it means we have a situation whereby we have to evacuate 15,000 people walking on the track - you think about it, children, students, pregnant ladies, the elderly - that is a situation I didn't want to have, so I guess it was the lesser of two evils."
SMRT 'UNABLE TO COPE'
Mr Lee also admitted SMRT was not able to handle last week's massive train disruption on its own, despite deploying 700 staff that night. He suggested setting up a taskforce involving the Land Transport Authority and other enforcement agencies.
"One trainload is about 1,400, so we're talking about three to four trainloads of people descending onto the concourse and we were just not able to cope. This is a situation whereby I think SMRT just doesn't have the organic capacity to cope with this level of disruption. I think perhaps it's something that we need to take at the national level," he said.
The LTA chief said they had mobilised whatever assets they could on the night, including buses from SBS Transit. The authority was also planning to call on private bus operators if it had to, as back-up.
"We will have to have a deep examination what worked, what didn't work. We pull back and ask ourselves what are the additional contingency actions and plans we need to put together so we can be better prepared," Mr Chew said.
AGEING RAIL NETWORK
Mr Lee also pointed out that the North-South and East-West Lines were the first major lines to be built. He said they are towards the end of their life span, when they see a spike in defect rates. He noted that they must move beyond this phase when they are renewing their assets.
Mr Lee added that the aging insulators in the train's third rail system may have caused a power leak that led to last week's major train disruption.
"The third rail is actually suspended in the air by a series of brackets,” he said. “The brackets are insulated from the third rail by this ceramic material that is called insulator. The third rail system has been in place since 1987, so it is almost 30 years old, and some of these insulators are aging, and so there's a possibility that some of them have lost their insulation properties."
Mr Chew said maintenance has to be kept up. "The system has been running for over 30 years; in 25 years of those 30 years actually the system has run pretty well based on the design we have actually put in," he said. "I think it's very important that as the system continues to age, the maintenance needs to be kept up specifically.
“Additional effort needs to actually be put in to see how we can preemptively see what the vulnerabilities are and change out specific components."
MRT disruption on its own
"We were just not able to cope", says SMRT's managing director of trains Lee Ling Wee of the scale of disruption to the North-South and East-West Lines that affected 250,000 commuters on Jul 7.
SINGAPORE: It was a tough call to stop train service during a breakdown that affected Singapore's two main MRT lines last week, but it was the lesser of two evils, said SMRT's managing director of trains Lee Ling Wee on Tuesday (Jul 14).
Mr Lee was on Channel 5's Talking Point with the Land Transport Authority's (LTA) chief executive Chew Men Leong and Professor Lee Der Horng, from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore.
Mr Lee said he wanted to do whatever he could to keep the trains running. However, if service continued running, there would be the risk of trains being stuck in between stations, and passengers would have to evacuate onto the tracks.
“That was a very dreadful moment,” he said. “It was peak hour and 250,000 commuters will be inconvenienced, among which we have Muslim Singaporeans who are going back to break fast. But what is the alternative? The alternative is to continue, which means it may get more trains stuck between stations.
“One train has about 1,500 passengers and if you have 10 trains stuck between stations, it means we have a situation whereby we have to evacuate 15,000 people walking on the track - you think about it, children, students, pregnant ladies, the elderly - that is a situation I didn't want to have, so I guess it was the lesser of two evils."
SMRT 'UNABLE TO COPE'
Mr Lee also admitted SMRT was not able to handle last week's massive train disruption on its own, despite deploying 700 staff that night. He suggested setting up a taskforce involving the Land Transport Authority and other enforcement agencies.
"One trainload is about 1,400, so we're talking about three to four trainloads of people descending onto the concourse and we were just not able to cope. This is a situation whereby I think SMRT just doesn't have the organic capacity to cope with this level of disruption. I think perhaps it's something that we need to take at the national level," he said.
The LTA chief said they had mobilised whatever assets they could on the night, including buses from SBS Transit. The authority was also planning to call on private bus operators if it had to, as back-up.
"We will have to have a deep examination what worked, what didn't work. We pull back and ask ourselves what are the additional contingency actions and plans we need to put together so we can be better prepared," Mr Chew said.
AGEING RAIL NETWORK
Mr Lee also pointed out that the North-South and East-West Lines were the first major lines to be built. He said they are towards the end of their life span, when they see a spike in defect rates. He noted that they must move beyond this phase when they are renewing their assets.
Mr Lee added that the aging insulators in the train's third rail system may have caused a power leak that led to last week's major train disruption.
"The third rail is actually suspended in the air by a series of brackets,” he said. “The brackets are insulated from the third rail by this ceramic material that is called insulator. The third rail system has been in place since 1987, so it is almost 30 years old, and some of these insulators are aging, and so there's a possibility that some of them have lost their insulation properties."
Mr Chew said maintenance has to be kept up. "The system has been running for over 30 years; in 25 years of those 30 years actually the system has run pretty well based on the design we have actually put in," he said. "I think it's very important that as the system continues to age, the maintenance needs to be kept up specifically.
“Additional effort needs to actually be put in to see how we can preemptively see what the vulnerabilities are and change out specific components."
