FAILRAIL.sg

More reliable train services? Get Real

Contrary to the LTA-SMRT Joint Team's glowing report that train faults have been halved on the North-South-East-West lines (NSEWL), our data shows that there has not been any significant reduction in the number of service disruptions nor delay hours over the same period (June - August 2012). The December report continued the happy chorus, announcing that the train withdrawal rate was reduced from 3.2 (per 100,000 km) in 2011 to 2.6 in the second half of 2012. Notice how they have deliberately left out the data in the first half of 2012, which saw 3.91 trains withdrawn (per 100,000 km) from January through April 2012.

Key observations:

  • The second half of 2012 saw a higher frequency of service disruptions on the NSEWL, with the worst month in October.
  • The LTA-SMRT Joint Team congratulated itself in September for having 'significantly reduced' train withdrawals in just three months of work. Despite this improvement, the impact to commuters has actually worsened as June and August saw longer delay-hours than May.
  • System Service Availability (SSA) is an Operating Performance Standard (OPS) stipulated by the Land Transport Authority (LTA). Failure to comply with the OPS can subject the service operators to fines by LTA.
    • The East-West Line failed to meet the 99.5% SSA for 6 months in 2012 (January, February, April, May, June and October).
    • The North-South Line failed to meet the 99.5% SSA for 2 months in 2012 (April and October).
    • The Circle Line failed to meet the 99.5% SSA for 1 month in 2012 (October).

If the LTA-SMRT Joint Team wishes to convince the public that train services have become more reliable, they should be more transparent. The train withdrawal rate is only a single metric and being a lead KPI, it does not necessarily lead to real improvements in commuter experience on the ground. Evidently, the data shows a contrarian picture. If the LTA-SMRT Joint Team is truly confident in their performance, it should publish lag KPIs as well, such as the monthly SSA figures for each rail line.