SMRT Rail Performance Data

SMRT’s engineering team tracks closely the performance of all rail lines because the data collated allows the team to know which areas of the rail network need more attention.

Such data is shared with the public too. SMRT has been reporting quarterly statistics on the performance of the North-South and East-West Lines (NSEWL) on SMRT’s corporate website. Doing so allows commuters to keep track of key performance indicators for our rail system, such as delays of more than five minutes, disruptions of more than 30 minutes and the train withdrawal rate.

Data on MRT station assets

We have recently included data on the reliability of MRT station assets used by commuters, such as escalators, lifts and fare gates. We will continue to publish key service performance indicators on a regular basis so that you can follow our journey in improving reliability on our network.

The re-sleepering, re-signalling, third-rail replacement and power network improvement project will contribute to better reliability on the NSEWL – Singapore’s longest, oldest and most heavily-used rail lines.

The mean kilometre between failure (MBKF) rate will improve, thanks to stepped up our maintenance efforts. Furthermore, our multi-year, multi-project renewal efforts for the NSEWL are on track.

While we acknowledge that the improvement in NSEWL service reliability may not seem to be significant in the first 10 months of 2016, we are quietly confident it will demonstrate clear improvements in the coming years. The better MKBF numbers will translate to better journeys for commuters with trains that run more reliably, and shorter waiting times as more trains are deployed on the NSEWL.

How MKBF will be improved

We have been tracking the sources of our service delays over the past three years and classifying them into categories such as third-rail, signalling, traction power and various types of train-related faults. For each category, we have a series of initiatives in place to address these faults in the immediate, medium and long term.

Improvements in MKBF rate will be achieved as we complete each of these initiatives. For example, we had a number of third-rail-related incidents in the first 10 months of the year that resulted in planned service delays. These are delays of not more than 10 minutes caused by engineering work that the engineers needed to carry out during traffic hours whenever sensors installed on selected passengers trains pick up defects that have the potential of causing more than 30 minutes delays. As part of our short term improvement initiatives, the use of these sensors allow us to identify an emerging issue and nip it in the bud before it caused a longer delay and inconvenienced commuters even more. With the completion of third-rail replacement by March 2017, as part of our long term improvement initiatives, we expect that such incidents will be significantly reduced.

As of November 2016, 33% of delays lasting more than five minutes were signal-related. We expect these to reduce significantly after we successfully migrate our ageing signalling system to the new Communication-Based Train Control (CBTC) system. The CBTC system has a higher level of redundancies. The new signalling system will be activated on the NSL in 2017 and we are working hard to complete the EWL by end-2018.

We have intensified our efforts to renew the equipment that provides traction power to the network. There are also similar fleet-wide renewal of components to address propulsion, door and brake systems that constitute 90% of train-related delays.

All-out effort to improve NSEWL

These efforts take several years to complete because of the length of the NSEWL, and the size of the fleet. As we serve commuters nearly 20 hours a day, and 365 days a year, we have limited time to carry out renewal and maintenance works. For example, there are 188,000 30-year-old timber sleepers on NSEWL to be replaced. With 141 six-car trains and 24 doors on each train, there are 3,384 train doors for us to work on. Nonetheless, with a laser-sharp focus and a never-give-up determination to catch up with our counterparts in Hong Kong and Taipei, we believe that there is only one direction for NSEWL rail service reliability to go in the coming years: Up.

Commuters may wish to refer to Your Journey Matters – most recently updated in August 2016 and also available on our website– for a comprehensive primer on SMRT’s efforts to renew and improve the NSEWL.

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