FAILRAIL.sg

Running In Circles On the Circle Line

SMRT's Circle Line is the newest rail line in Singapore (as at August 2013). The Circle Line was opened in stages since 2009 and it became fully operational in 2011.

According to Minister Lui Tuck Yew's parliamentary reply on 13 August 2013, there were three service disruptions of more than 30 minutes on the Circle Line each year from 2010 to 2012. In 2013, there was none so far. That makes a total of 9 service disruptions exceeding 30 minutes on the Circle Line since 2010.

However, our data doesn't agree with Minister Lui's statement. The following table shows the details of service disruptions that exceeded 30 minutes in duration:

Let's tally the yearly number of service disruptions exceeding 30 minutes on the Circle Line:

  • From January - August 2013, there were 2 such incidents, one of which exceeded one hour in duration. This count was omitted in Minister Lui's parliamentary reply.
  • In 2012, there were 10 such incidents, out of which 6 exceeded one hour in duration.
  • In 2011, there were 3 such incidents, out of which 2 exceeded one hour in duration.
  • We have no data in 2010, so we will take the official account that there were 3 such incidents in 2010.

All in, there should be 18 (2 + 10 + 3 + 3) service disruptions of more than 30 minutes on the Circle Line since 2010. This is double that of the figure Minister Lui provided in Parliament. Why the difference?

Comparison With Other Rail Lines

In terms of service reliability, how does the Circle Line fare in comparison with other rail lines?

Despite being the newest rail line, the Circle Line actually suffered more service disruptions than the North-East Line, which is six years older than the Circle Line. In particular, the Circle Line experienced 5 track faults whereas the North-East Line had none. The most recent track fault occured on the Circle Line on 27 July 2013, which delayed service for more than an hour.

North-East Line

The parliamentary reply also touched on the woes of the North-East Line. We maintain our call for more transparency and accountability in a separate article written for TheOnlineCitizen.