Rail reliability up 30% in 2016

SINGAPORE'S rail network saw a 30 per cent improvement in reliability last year, with the best performer being the Downtown Line, said Permanent Secretary for Transport Pang Kin Keong.

Opening the Third Joint Forum on Infrastructure Maintenance on Thursday, he said that the mean kilometre between failure (MKBF) in 2016 rose to 174,000 train-km from 2015's 133,000 train-km.

At the last forum in May 2016, Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan had challenged rail operators to achieve a MKBF of 400,000 train-km by 2018 for incidents resulting in service delays of more than five minutes, and 800,000 train-km by 2020.

In 2016, the Downtown Line achieved 260,000 train-km, while the older Circle Line managed 228,000 train-km despite significant signalling problems.

Mr Pang said: "I believe that this improvement is the result of sharply increased investments in the renewal and upgrading of operating assets, the sharply intensified maintenance regimes put in place by the operators, and the adoption of good ideas from the larger engineering fraternity in Singapore."