S’pore to have more planned MRT closures over longer period for repairs: Jeffrey Siow
This is the second round of service adjustments to allow for track works
[SINGAPORE] Passengers in Singapore can expect more scheduled closures of the rail network that are stretched out over a longer period, to create more time for major upgrades of MRT lines.
This is to allow repair works to be completed more quickly and safely, said Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow on Nov 19, citing the upcoming 10-day stoppage of train services on stretches of the East-West Line (EWL) from late November as an example.
Speaking to more than 700 global rail experts at the inaugural International Metro Operators’ Summit organised by public transport operator SBS Transit, Siow said it is no longer enough to shorten operational hours with early closures and late openings of stations, in order to increase the number of maintenance hours.
“As our network ages, we will have to shift this balance a little, to create more time for major upgrades that require a continuous block of maintenance time,” he said at the summit at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre.
He also flagged two other challenges in maintaining rail reliability, which are the low adoption of new technology and the lack of fresh talent entering the sector.
Likening a metro system to a combination of a house, car and computer, Siow said some people might own a 40-year-old house or car, but definitely not a 40-year-old computer – let alone a 100-year-old train system like the Tube in London.
Keeping these systems going is “almost Sisyphean”, requiring constant patching and repairs, or even occasional upgrades, he said.
“A metro system is extremely complex. It is made up of many interconnected parts,” he added.
Siow noted that the maintenance of MRT systems in Singapore is done in a 3½-hour window, starting from the time train services fully shut down at night and ending when the system starts up again.
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In fact, if the time taken to deploy and extract the heavy equipment for maintenance is factored in, there are only about two engineering hours every night to carry out works, he added.
This is scarcely enough time to get the system ready for the next morning, much less do any major upgrades, said Siow.
On Nov 18, an international panel of rail experts who are in Singapore suggested that the Land Transport Authority (LTA) should carry out longer planned shutdowns of segments of the rail network, to allow critical maintenance and renewal works to be done safely and efficiently.
Renewing several critical systems simultaneously while managing day-to-day rail operations poses challenges, said the panel, which is advising a task force to raise the reliability of Singapore’s MRT and LRT networks.
From Nov 29 to Dec 8, train services on the EWL will not run between Bedok and Tampines stations. There will also be no service between Tanah Merah and Expo stations during that period.
This is the second round of service adjustments to allow for track works.
On the technology gap, Siow said that when metro systems first open, they are almost always state-of-the-art, but they become outdated almost immediately and legacy systems cannot be upgraded easily.
More can be done to keep up with new technologies by retrofitting existing systems, and using automation or robotics for maintenance, he added.
For example, while condition monitoring was talked about 15 years ago with the aim of getting real-time data to track performance and predict failures before they occur, it is still quite difficult and costly to retrofit legacy systems for such data collection, Siow said.
Noting that there are around 8,000 rail workers here, of which the median age is above 40, Siow said it is harder to get younger people to replace the current rail technician workforce due to the perception that these jobs could be “dirty, dangerous and difficult”.
Additionally, there is intense competition with other industries for workers with deeper technical skillsets, such as in electrical and mechanical engineering, as well as software and cybersecurity, he said.
“If the rail sector is unable to attract enough younger engineers and technicians, the manpower shortage will worsen, especially when the current crop of senior technicians retire,” said the acting minister.
A National Transport Academy helmed by former LTA deputy chief executive Jeremy Yap was recently formed to draw expertise across existing rail, bus and other training academies, he noted.
While Singapore’s system is relatively new at 40 years old, Siow said it is increasingly dealing with the same problems that other older metro systems have encountered, in terms of maintaining service quality and reliability as the system ages.
“But if we mind the gap, we can all look forward to a smoother ride,” he said, noting that this entails operators, unions and LTA working together.
Siow also sought the understanding of the public that “even with the best of efforts, sometimes disruptions and delays will still happen – as they do everywhere in the world”. THE STRAITS TIMES
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