SMRT to pay lower fine of $2.4m for EWL disruption; must invest at least $600k to boost reliability
SINGAPORE - Rail operator SMRT will pay a lower fine of $2.4 million for a major six-day disruption on the East-West Line in September 2024 after it submitted representations to the Land Transport Authority (LTA).
This is down from
the financial penalty of $3 million handed out in June when the investigation findings into the incident were released.
Announcing the updated penalty in a statement on July 25, LTA said the financial penalty of $2.4 million will go to the Public Transport Fund to help lower-income families with their public transport expenditures.
'In addition, LTA has issued a direction to SMRT to invest a minimum of $600,000 to strengthen its capabilities, and address areas of improvement from the incident, so as to improve service reliability for commuters,' the authority added.
'In reaching this decision, LTA took into consideration the considerable challenges SMRT had faced in planning and executing their overhaul regime for the Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) trains, particularly in procuring the necessary spare parts for the overhaul due to global supply chain disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.'
The Straits Times has contacted SMRT for comment.
LTA had notified SMRT of its intention to impose the $3 million penalty on May 30, and gave the rail operator two weeks to submit its representations. SMRT did so on June 6.
The authority reiterated that Singapore's rail system continues to be one of the most reliable in the world.
Since 2019, the mean kilometres between failure of the MRT network has remained above the one million train-km target, it noted. This means MRT trains travelled for more than one million kilometres between delays of more than five minutes.
The revised amount of $2.4 million is the second-highest penalty levied on a rail operator, after the $5.4 million fine that SMRT incurred in July 2015 for a disruption that crippled the entire North-South and East-West lines for more than two hours during the evening peak period.
In June, LTA said the financial penalty meted out was 'proportionate' to the circumstances surrounding the incident, which downed MRT services between Jurong East and Buona Vista stations and affected about one in six train trips daily.
The authority said it also took into consideration the cost that SMRT had borne from the repairs , as well as from providing free bus and shuttle train services at the affected stations.
Investigations pointed to degraded grease as the likely cause of the six-day disruption. This led to a faulty part of a first-generation KHI train's undercarriage to fall out on the morning of Sept 25, 2024.
The part – called an axle box, which holds the train's wheels to the axle, a rod connecting a pair of wheels – was dislodged near Dover station while the train was being withdrawn from service to Ulu Pandan Depot.
This caused one of the train's 12 bogies – a structure below the train carriage – to derail.
The six-car train could continue travelling as the other 11 bogies remained on the rails. But the derailed portion of the third carriage caused extensive damage to 2.55km of track and trackside equipment, such as power cables and the third rail, which supplies power to trains.
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