Tuck Yew’s contributions will be sorely missed by the team. He has been a stalwart in steering us through very challenging circumstances in the transport sector. I have the opportunity to see his dedication and meticulousness first hand, and it was a privilege to learn from Tuck Yew. His commitment to make things better has never failed to impress me.
During his time in the transport ministry, he has put in place plans that will not only manage today’s challenges but also tomorrow’s demands.
We are also thankful for Tuck Yew’s care and concern for the transport sector workers. He always had the interests of our workers in his heart as he tackled the many challenges in the transport sector.
Thankful for Tuck Yew’s contributions and we wish him and his family all the best.
I boarded the MRT with my 6 yrs-old (going on to 7 yrs-old; P1 this year) son at Sengkang station and we planned to go to Dhoby Ghaut MRT. When we boarded the train, it was crowded and there wasn’t much space to stand. My son stood next to a reserved seat which was taken by an Indian construction worker. He was listening to walkman and didn’t give up seat to my son throughout our ride in the train.
So I asked my son to hold onto the pole tight with both hands and stand properly. I was still afraid to take this picture as there are many Indian construction workers around us in the train cabin. But I decided to quickly snapped a picture. When the train reached Serangoon station, I asked my son to get off the train as I did not want to stay in the train cabin anymore.
We continued our journey on the Circle line. When we boarded the train at Serangoon station going towards Promenade MRT, a Philipino maid was seating on a seat beside me (not reserved seat) and there was a 60-plus yrs old (Pioneer Generation) man standing right in front of her. The Philipino maid didn’t give up her seat to the old man. Upon seeing this, I had a brief chat with the uncle telling him about my earlier experience on the train on the NE line.
So this is the treatment our future generation and Pioneer generation received on public transport in their own home country, which is so open to welcoming foreigners.
Transport fares will be reduced by up to 1.9 per cent from December, said Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew on Monday (Aug 3).
Mr Lui, who spoke to the media at One-North MRT station, said fares were being lowered following reduced fuel costs.
He added that he would leave it to the Public Transport Council to work out the specific reductions, but expects “every commuter group” to pay lower fares.
These fares will kick in in December, coinciding with the opening of the second phase of the Downtown Line.
In addition, Mr Lui also said commuters would soon have shorter wait times while riding on the Circle Line.
Seven new trains have been put into service since June 24 this year, and another three to five will be deployed by the end of this year, the Land Transport Authority said in a media statement on Monday.
The new trains are part of a plan to roll out 24 new trains on the Circle Line, boosting capacity by 60 per cent. There are currently 47 trains on the Circle Line.
At the moment, commuters wait an average of 3.5 minutes during peak hour for a ride. This will be cut to 2.7 minutes.
During off-peak periods, commuters will only have to wait five minutes, down from an average of seven minutes.
Salt, water and electricity do not mix. Commuters in Singapore found out the hard way on July 7, when an accumulation of salty deposits on an electrical component on the East-West Line triggered the biggest rail breakdown here.
Releasing their findings three weeks after the incident yesterday, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and rail operator SMRT said laboratory tests found that the deposits were caused by a persistent leak near the Tanjong Pagar station tunnel, towards Raffles Place.
The deposits were 15 times saltier than seawater.
Water from the leak itself was found to be one-sixth the saltiness of seawater – an indication that the deposits had taken some time to precipitate.
The deposits allowed electricity from the MRT’s power-supplying third rail to stray across its insulator into the ground. This caused several electrical trips along the East-West Line as well as the connected North-South Line.
Tripping cuts off electricity supply to prevent a stray current from electrocuting train occupants.
The findings were arrived at with the help of external experts from Parsons Brinckerhoff and Meidensha, whose services were paid for by LTA. They coincide with a hypothesis by George Yu, a chartered engineer specialising in industrial forensics, failure analysis and accident investigation.
Dr Yu, who has done extensive work on the MRT, told The Straits Times just days after the July 7 breakdown that deposits on insulators were the prime suspect.
He said contaminants would settle on the third-rail insulators over time. These include water, and graphite from the trains’ current collector shoes, which make contact with the rail. Graphite is a conductor of electricity.
To prevent a repeat of the incident, Dr Yu said SMRT should “prevent insulators from contacting water or liquid”. He also suggested that insulators be regularly cleaned to prevent deposit build-up and that old insulators with heavy deposits in areas exposed to tunnel water leakage be immediately replaced.
SMRT said that this was done right after the incident. The operator and LTA said yesterday that some 30,000 insulators on both lines will be replaced by the first quarter of 2017 – along with the planned third-rail-replacement programme.
SMRT also said it would improve maintenance of the insulators. Chief executive Desmond Kuek said: “We’ve reviewed all our existing work instructions and we’re satisfied that they’ve all been complied with. But…we will be taking firm steps to review and improve all those work instructions.”
SMRT will also “desensitise” the circuit breakers that trip the system, by raising the stray voltage limit from 136 volts to 200 volts by end of this week. LTA said this was in accordance with international standards and was completely safe.
In the longer term, it will implement voltage limiting devices which are being tested in Downtown Line 1. These will isolate power trips.
LTA added that it was also studying the feasibility of separating the North-South and East-West lines, so that a power incident does not spread across both lines.
It said this would be considered carefully, so as to ensure that doing so would not cause other weaknesses.
LTA chief executive Chew Mun Leong added that “we will leave no stone unturned” to improve the reliability of the system.
“Raise fares to improve train service”, says the title of the letter to the Straits Times forum page on Wednesday.
Mr Jonathan Toh Joo Khai, the writer, pointed at the Public Transport Council (PTC), which regulates public transport fares, as the “root cause of SMRT’s frequent train breakdowns.”
“The fare hikes are miserly compared with the rate of inflation,” Mr Toh said.
He then rattled off a litany of “financial indicators” of the SMRT which, he said, “had been falling for five straight years.”
“Unlike other companies, SMRT cannot shed its money-losing train business,” Mr Toh said. “Yet, it is yet expected to improve reliability even as the PTC moderates fare hikes to meet the demands of commuters, some of whom even want a freeze to fare hikes until reliability improves.”
“How is that possible?” he asked.
He argued that “train fares in Singapore are low relative to gross domestic product per capita.”
Mr Toh thus called for fares to be increased, and that discounts be given to those in need.
“The rest who happily use our latest flashy iPhones and Samsungs to kill time on the trains can surely afford a fare hike,” he concluded.
The public transport operators (PTOs) make yearly application, usually towards the end of the year, for “fares review”, which the PTC will consider and decide on several months later, usually around March.
Mr Toh’s call is not new and is the latest in the last two years or so from various quarters who have also also called for higher fares for buses.
In January 204, for example, this report appeared in the TODAY newspaper:
TODAY, Jan 2014
“Rather than complain about both poor service and fare increases, perhaps it is time for a shift in commuters’ thinking towards paying even more, so that we get the transport services we deserve in a world-class city,” the writer said.
About four months later, the former chairman of the PTC, Gerard Ee, echoed the same sentiments.
Straits Times, May 2014
“At the end of the day, buses and trains are about transporting a lot of people from Point A to B as affordably as possible,” Mr Ee said. “So by that very nature, they are going to be crowded. They’re not designed for comfort.
“If you treasure your time and treasure your comfort, you pay a premium – there are premium bus services. If you value your time and comfort even more, buy a car. And then ultimately, get a chauffeur. You have to decide for yourself what it is you want.”
Straits Times, Jan 2014
But in January 2014, the PTC itself delinked the relationship between fare hikes and better service, particularly breakdowns of the system.
The PTC’s remarks were in response to public sentiments that fares should not go up when trains are still breaking down.
“[The] Public Transport Council (PTC) has said that the two issues should be kept separate,” the Straits Times reported.
Nonetheless, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in September last year that progress and improvements have been made, and that “there are not so many breakdowns as before.”
But just three months later, the TODAY newspaper reported that the “number of major MRT delays had hit a] four-year high.”
Sept 2014
There were 12 “major delays” in the first nine months of 2014 alone, the newspaper reported. This was more than the 11 for the entire year in 2011, the previous record number of delays.
And on Thursday, 30 July 2015, the Straits Times reported that there have already been “five major delays in Q1, nearly half last year’s total.”
Straits Times, 30 July 2015
“[There] were five service delays lasting more than 30 minutes between January and March this year,” the Straits Times said.
This included a disruption in February where a breakdown in the line between Yew Tee and Kranji station lasted for four hours and 38 minutes.
And earlier in July, the entire train system was shut-down for several hours due to a train fault, affecting 250,000 commuters.
Would all these problems disappear with the simple solution of increasing fares?
One would be hard-pressed to argue for such a simplistic expectation.
Yet, the truth is that much public funds have been poured into the transport system, billions in fact, and billions more have been earmarked for the same in the next decade.
And are the PTOs making losses?
If they were, there would be no justification for them to double the salary of their chief executive officer, as SMRT did this year, raising its CEO pay from S$1.2m in 2013, to $2.25m to $2.5m in 2015. (See here: “SMRT CEO paid $2.2m to $2.5m – a multifold jump in three years?“.
