LTA to impose S$3 million fine on SMRT for major MRT disruption in 2024
Regulator’s investigation shows the train involved had its overhaul delayed twice by rail operator
[SINGAPORE] The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said on Tuesday (Jun 3) that it will impose a financial penalty of S$3 million on rail operator SMRT for the major disruption of train services on the East-West Line in September 2024.
The sum will go to the Public Transport Fund to assist lower-income families with public transport expenditures.
The penalty is proportionate to the incident’s circumstances, noted LTA, and takes into account the fact that SMRT had borne the costs related to the disruption, which amounted to more than S$10 million.
This included repairs, providing supplementary and regular bus services and shuttle train services as well as free travel to passengers alighting at the Jurong East and Buona Vista stations for the duration of the disruption.
SMRT Trains’ last reported financial results saw it post a net profit of S$7.5 million for the year ended March 2024 from a revenue of S$886.7 million, with an operating profit of S$6.2 million.
In 2016, SMRT was fined S$5.4 million for breakdowns in 2015 on the North-South and East-West lines that affected more than 400,000 commuters.
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On Tuesday, LTA also revealed the findings from its investigation into the 2024 incident, which was carried out with the help of a six-person, international expert advisory panel and independent testing company SGS Testing and Control Services.
The investigation showed that while SMRT’s regular preventative maintenance found no anomalies before the incident, an overhaul of the train – which was delayed twice by the operator – would have addressed the likely cause of the incident.
In a Facebook post, SMRT said that it “notes LTA’s findings and remains firmly committed to upholding the highest standards of safety and operations across (its) network”.
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Overhaul delayed twice
On Sep 25, 2024, the axle box of the incident train – T310 – got dislodged and caused damage to the tracks and equipment between Dover station and Ulu Pandan Depot.
It led to one of the most significant MRT disruptions in Singapore’s history, with train services on the East-West Line between Jurong East and Buona Vista stations suspended for six days before resuming on Oct 1, 2024. It affected an estimated 2.6 million commuters.
A train’s wheels are attached to axles, which themselves are held by greased bearings that allow them to spin freely. The axle box contains the bearings, and is suspended by chevron springs that support the weight of the train.
For T310, part of 66 first-generation Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) trains in use since 1987, a train car has eight wheels, each of which has an axle box.
LTA’s report said that the recovered chevron springs, axle box and bearings of T310 were too badly damaged to establish a definitive root cause. But given that the bearing grease in the unit was burned off and that grease samples from the other axle boxes of the train were degraded, the most likely cause was the failure of grease to lubricate the bearings, making the latter overheat and fail.
An SMRT system implemented to monitor axle box temperatures logged an anomalously high temperature from the axle box in question on T310’s westbound trip on the morning of Sep 24, although a “system issue” meant the train in question could not be identified.
Post-incident logs showed that the axle box had slightly elevated temperatures, but were still within normal operating limits.
Preventative maintenance on T310 was carried out on Jul 15 and Sep 10, but no irregularities were found.
The rail operator’s stipulated maintenance requirement is to overhaul the axle box and chevron springs after every 500,000 km run by KHI trains. LTA found that SMRT had extended the overhaul interval for T310 to 575,000 km in August 2022 and 750,000 km in August 2024, based on the operator’s internal procedures.
SMRT was not required to inform LTA of this extension. T310 had covered 690,000 km at the time of the incident and was three years from the end of its total service life of 38 years, and it was last overhauled in July 2018.
T310 had been identified for overhaul along with 38 other KHI trains, beginning in December 2023. At the time of the incident, 18 such trains had been overhauled.
“As axle box failures are not common, SMRT did not undertake a detailed engineering and risk assessment on extending the axle box overhaul interval… Had the incident train been overhauled in a more timely manner, the condition of its axle box assemblies would have been checked and any degraded grease could have been replaced earlier,” concluded LTA.
Lam Sheau Kai, president of SMRT Trains, said that axle box dislodgments have occurred in other metro systems. “These are extremely rare, sudden, and catastrophic incidents. Even for those metros, such failures caught them off guard due to their acute nature.” He added that the company’s overhaul regime has served it well in the past 38 years.
The KHI trains were originally scheduled to be replaced by new Alstom Movia trains beginning in October 2021 and ending March 2024, but the pandemic delayed the delivery of the first trains by one-and-a-half years to May 2023.
“What may have caught us off-guard this time was the convergence of factors – delays in new train deliveries due to Covid-19, our efforts to balance and adjust overhaul schedules, and the lag in receiving critical spare parts... we could perhaps have exercised greater caution in how we managed the transition and decommissioning of the older trains,” said Lam.
LTA noted that SMRT’s staff had responded to T310’s incident appropriately, while the operator had also managed the service disruption “satisfactorily” by activating alternative means of transport for commuters.
Moving ahead
Post-incident, SMRT overhauled all KHI trains with more than 500,000 km mileage.
LTA said that an accelerated delivery programme for the new trains means that all first-generation KHI trains will be removed from service by the third quarter of this year.
New data analytics to detect abnormal axle box temperatures will be implemented by SMRT, while LTA has increased its oversight of rail operators’ asset management and internal procedures on maintenance schedules.
“LTA and operators will work together for future overhaul decisions,” it added.
SMRT, LTA, and the National Transport Workers’ Union have also set up a Rail Safety and Reliability Review Workgroup to improve best practices for Singapore’s rail network.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Transport (MOT) announced an additional S$1 billion over the next five years to improve the management of rail assets and upscale the sector’s workforce.
Separately, MOT’s Transport Safety Investigation Bureau’s investigation report on the faulty train incident will be available on its website.
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