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SINGAPORE - The Ministry of Transport today, together with the Land Transport Authority (LTA), accepted responsibility for the two breakdowns that affected more than 220,000 commuters.
Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew said in Parliament today that "both MOT, as the supervising Ministry, and LTA, as the regulator - have to shoulder our share of the responsibility."
"We could have done more, and could have done better... I give the House my assurance that we will spare no effort to improve."
Mr Lui said that LTA will take several steps towards improvement including exploring ways to better regulate the rail operator's maintenance and service standards.
In a separate statement to the media, LTA revealed that transport operators will be required to carry out an internal audit of their own maintenance processes and activities on an annual basis.
Further to that, it will require SMRT to engage independent experts to audit its maintenance processes every three years.
Minister Liu said in Parliament that LTA will also require rail operators to track certain indicators to detect problems early detection and timely preventive actions can take place.
He has also tasked SMRT and LTA to consult their overseas counterparts to "see what preventive measures we should put in place, and what useful lessons we can learn, to cope with an ageing rail system".
This is in an attempt to minimise inconvenience to commuters in the case of major breakdowns, he said.
He also added that LTA and SMRT have set up a joint team of engineering and maintenance experts to look into raising the reliability of the North-south, East-west lines - which are Singapore's oldest metro lines.
Further measures by LTA
In their statement to the media, the LTA said it will require rail operators to seek its approval for their Rail Incident Management Plans (RIMP).
This will allow LTA to make changes to the RIMP and direct the operators to adjust their plans as necessary.
Besides maintaining rail assets, LTA said it will also review SMRT's command structure and standard operating procedures to ensure that it is well-equipped to manage large-scale incidents.
The authority said it has already started to review the operators' bus bridging, signage and crowd management plans, to ensure that the plans are adequate and minimise the confusion and inconvenience to commuters during train service
Rail operators will also be subject to regular surprise checks at MRT stations. LTA will conduct these checks to assess the readiness of the operators' frontline staff to deal with extended train service disruptions.
Regarding penalties, LTA revealed that it will review the maximum fine that can be imposed on the operators for extended train service disruptions.
Under the current penalty framework, a rail operator can be fined up to $1 million for a breakdown.
dassa@sph.com.sg
6,500 commuters affected by MRT train breakdowns in Dec
Click on thumbnail to view. Story continues after photos.
(Photos: ST, Stomp, TNP) |
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