Lessons from MRT Service Disruptions in February 2025 and Actions to Prevent Similar Breakdowns

1 Mr Leong Mun Wai asked the Minister for Transport (a) whether an update can be provided on the lessons learnt from the recent MRT service disruptions on the North-South Line on 7 February 2025, North-East Line on 10 February 2025 and Circle Line on 11 February 2025; and (b) what are the actions that the Ministry will take to prevent a repeat of similar breakdowns.

2 Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for Transport (a) whether any of the recent MRT disruptions leading to delays in MRT services on the North-South Line, North-East Line and Circle Line in February 2025 were caused by a maintenance issues; and (b) what steps will be taken to ensure that similar incidents can be minimised or avoided in future.

The Minister for Transport (Mr Chee Hong Tat): Mr Speaker, may I have your permission to provide a combined response for oral Question Nos 1 and 2 in today's Order Paper?

Mr Speaker: Please proceed.

Mr Chee Hong Tat: Thank you, Sir. Mr Speaker, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) is investigating the root causes of the three incidents on 7, 10 and 11 February. I will share the preliminary findings for each incident.

First, the North-South Line (NSL) incident on 7 February. At around 5.15 am, an engineering vehicle broke down at a railway crossing in Bishan Depot after routine maintenance works. This engineering vehicle comprises three wagons, which are used for carrying equipment and materials for maintenance works and two locomotives, which are used for moving the wagons along the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) tracks. As trains departing Bishan Depot for the mainline need to pass through this railway crossing, SMRT was unable to launch trains from Bishan Depot. To allow operations to resume, SMRT attempted to move the stalled engineering vehicle using a rescue train. When the rescue train started moving the stalled vehicle, SMRT discovered that some of the wheels of two of the wagons had come off the rails.

By the time the engineering vehicle stalled, only three out of 39 trains that were scheduled to serve the NSL that morning had been launched from Bishan Depot.

To ensure that commuters using the NSL could still continue on their journeys, SMRT redirected some trains from the East-West Line (EWL) to the NSL. This allowed train services to continue operating throughout the day on both lines, but with a longer interval between trains during peak hours. SMRT also activated free regular and free bridging buses along the busiest stretch of the NSL between Woodlands and Bishan stations, to provide commuters with an alternative travel option. As there were fewer trains during peak periods, commuters experienced longer waiting times at the stations, but their travel times were largely unaffected once they boarded the train.

Meanwhile, SMRT had continued with their recovery efforts to move the stalled engineering vehicle. Due to the tight space around the depot tracks, SMRT was unable to use heavy lifting cranes. It had to use hydraulic equipment to slowly and safely shift the stalled vehicle onto another track. The stalled vehicle was cleared off the railway crossing by around 5.30 pm. After completing a series of thorough checks to ensure safety, SMRT was able to launch trains from Bishan Depot from 6.36 pm and progressively restored normal train service for commuters on the NSL and EWL.

Next, the North East Line (NEL) incident on 10 February. At around 6.08 am, a signalling fault occurred near Buangkok station. This prevented the NEL trains from being controlled automatically. As a result, while trains could still travel along the NEL, they had to be controlled manually and travel at slower speeds to ensure safety. This led to reduced frequency of service and additional travel time for commuters. In response to this decrease in service capacity, SBS Transit (SBST) activated free regular and bridging buses along the NEL between Punggol Coast and Dhoby Ghaut stations at 6.55 am to provide commuters with an alternative travel option.

Preliminary investigations indicate that the signalling fault was caused by a malfunctioning electronic card in the signalling system. There were no prior signs during the maintenance checks which showed that this card would malfunction. SBST replaced the malfunctioning electronic card, and was able to restore the signalling system’s operations at around 8.00 am, following which normal train service was progressively restored. The faulty electronic card has been sent to the system manufacturer for further examination, to identify the root cause of the malfunction.

Third, the Circle Line (CCL) incident on 11 February. In LTA’s earlier statement on 13 February 2025, it noted that a power trip had occurred arising from a signalling fault. Further investigations show that there was no power trip and that the incident was due to a signalling fault.

Based on LTA’s latest findings, at around 8.15 am, a signalling fault caused a temporary loss of communications between a CCL train and the trackside signalling equipment. Sir, when this happens, the incident train will engage its brakes and stop moving, in accordance with safety protocols. The other trains near the incident train will also come to a stop to ensure safety for commuters, by keeping the trains at a safe distance from one another until communications can be fully restored.

Due to this signalling fault, 17 trains between Paya Lebar and Marymount stations were temporarily halted for safety. SMRT promptly withdrew the incident train from the mainline and after doing the necessary safety checks, train movement resumed progressively from 8.20 am, five minutes after the signalling fault had occurred.

However, when train operations were being restored, SMRT noticed that the Central Automatic Train Supervision (CATS) System, which manages the movement of trains, became less responsive. As a result, it took longer than usual to resume normal train operations, even though trains had started moving on the CCL. The delay in resumption of normal train operations led to longer wait times and travel durations for some CCL commuters.

We had experienced a similar issue with the CATS system in September 2024. After that incident, LTA and SMRT worked with the system manufacturer Alstom to develop a software patch to address the issue. The patch went through extensive testing and was ready for deployment on 15 February. Unfortunately, the incident happened a few days before the deployment date. SMRT and Alstom have since successfully deployed the software patch.

Mr Speaker, we take every incident on the MRT network seriously because rail safety, reliability and resilience will always be our priorities. Not just for LTA, but also for our tripartite partners in the One Transport Family.

Our preliminary findings show that the three incidents were unrelated – they involve different lines, different components, and different operations and maintenance teams. Unlike some previous disruptions where trains were unable to continue travelling on the tracks, the three incidents did not result in a prolonged stoppage of train services. Trains could continue to run along the NSL, NEL and CCL, albeit at longer intervals or slower speeds. However, as these incidents happened during the morning peak hours, they affected a larger number of commuters and lengthened the waiting and travel times.

Mr Speaker, we recognise that every incident causes inconvenience for affected commuters. While we cannot completely prevent incidents from happening in a rail system of this size and complexity, we certainly will do our best together with the operators and our workers to maintain a high level of safety, reliability and resilience, and to minimise the impact to commuters when an incident occurs.

Through this approach, we have achieved our one million mean kilometres between failure (MKBF) target consistently since 2019, which puts our overall system among the best performing metros in the world. As at 25 February 2025, the MKBF for our MRT network stands at about two million train-kilometres and all MRT lines have achieved our target MKBF of at least one million train-kilometres.

Rail safety, reliability and resilience are key priorities for LTA and our tripartite partners. We will continue to work close together on this front to identify areas for improvement, adopt new technologies for more effective maintenance and operations, and invest in the skills of our workers.

Mr Speaker: Mr Leong Mun Wai.

Mr Leong Mun Wai (Non-Constituency Member): Mr Speaker, I thank the Minister for his reply. I have two supplementary questions for him. On 13 February, LTA announced that it was looking into the root causes of MRT disruptions after three incidents in a week. I would like to ask the Minister, besides the hardware problems, will LTA also look into the potential problems in the staffing, staff turnover, skill level and morale in the engineering and maintenance department of SMRT?

Second question, during the debate after the six-day breakdown of the EWL after Jurong East station in September 2024, the Minister rejected my call for the convening of a Committee of Inquiry. Now that we have three more MRT disruptions in less than a week, I would like to ask the Minister whether he would now call for a Committee of Inquiry this time?

Mr Chee Hong Tat: Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Leong for his two questions. First, LTA is looking into the root causes for the three incidents that had happened in February. I have explained in my main reply what we think are some of the preliminary findings, why these three incidents happened on three separate lines. I hope Mr Leong would agree with me that these three incidents are unrelated to one another and also the nature would be quite different from what happened to the EWL disruption in September last year.

We have not completed our investigations for the EWL incident or for these three incidents. These are still ongoing. But we will certainly do our best to identify what are the learning points and then, to make sure that we share this with all the operators – not just in this case SMRT for the EWL, Circle Line and NSL, and SBST for the NEL, but we also want to encourage them to share these learning points in the whole One Transport Family so that everyone can benefit and do better.

Mr Leong is right that we should go beyond hardware because it is a review of the whole system of operations and maintenance. And we have certainly been looking at these issues as well and we will continue to do so.

I also want to thank Mr Leong for highlighting the importance of staff morale for our engineering and technical teams, because that is a very important part of ensuring smooth operations and good maintenance. And that is why we always emphasise that we want to continue to work closely together as tripartite partners to make sure that we uphold high standards of safety, reliability and resilience for our commuters.

Mr Speaker, I had explained during the Ministerial Statement in October after the September EWL incident on why the Government would not need to convene a Committee of Inquiry but to ask LTA, which is the regulator and is empowered to conduct a thorough investigation, to do so and then to share, for the EWL incident, the findings when the investigation is completed, to share the findings publicly. So, that remains our commitment. When the investigation for the EWL is completed, we will share the findings publicly, so that we learn from what happened and how we can do better.

And because these three incidents, even though they happened in quick succession, they are unrelated to one another and also to the EWL incident, there is not a systemic issue or concern with SBST or SMRT that I think will change our position on the necessity for a Committee of Inquiry.

Mr Speaker: Mr Dennis Tan.

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong (Hougang): I thank the Minister for his answers. I would like to ask the Minister, in respect of the disruption caused by the breakdown of the engineering vehicles on track, are the maintenance of the engineering or any other maintenance vehicles subject to the same maintenance standard as expected of passenger trains?

And following this incident, will LTA look into the maintenance regime for the maintenance vehicles, because, obviously, it may impact on the operations of our passenger trains? Relating to that, will SMRT also look at better service recovery of stalled engineering vehicles along the tracks?

Besides the engineering vehicle issue, I would also like to ask the Minister, beyond bridging bus services during a breakdown, how can operators and LTA improve the public communication process at affected stations with commuters during train disruptions? For example, can operators push out information on regular bus services operating near the affected stations to alleviate the demand on the bridging bus services?

Mr Chee Hong Tat: Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Tan for his three questions. The first one, on the engineering vehicle, the maintenance. These are not the same as MRT trains. As I have explained, the two locomotives, three wagons and the nature of how they operate will also be quite different from MRT trains. So, we do not subject them to the exact same maintenance regime as a normal MRT train because they are different vehicles. But we do have a maintenance regime in place for the engineering vehicles as well. This time round, we are still checking what happened. So, I do not want to prematurely jump to any conclusions. We will let LTA finish their investigations to understand what the root causes are and why this engineering vehicle broke down.

To Mr Tan's second question on the service recovery, I do want to be fair to SMRT. They tried their very best to move the train as quickly as possible. So, the first thing that they did was to send a rescue train – and this is part of the standard operating procedure – to try and push the stalled engineering vehicle so that they are able to move it and clear the tracks for the trains to be launched from Bishan Depot. So, that was what they did.

But unfortunately, in the process of doing so, they discovered that the wheels of the engineering vehicle came off the rails. So, they were unable to continue pushing and they had to use a different method. And because of the space constraints, they were unable to deploy heavy lifting equipment at this location. So, it became a very labour-intensive and quite time-consuming process of having to use hydraulic equipment to try and move this very heavy engineering vehicle. It took them a long time to do so. They only managed to do so at about 5.00-plus pm, as I have explained earlier.

So, I do want to be fair to SMRT. It is not due to intentional delays. They were trying their very best to move the vehicle as quickly as possible, while, of course, adhering to the necessary safety protocols.

Mr Tan's third question, Mr Speaker, is on the response during an incident. I think this is an area where we will continue, as part of the learning, to see how we can finetune our communications with commuters and to see what we can do to improve. During peak hours, I think Mr Tan will agree with me that, given the large number of commuters, even on a normal day it is quite crowded. And when there is a delay or when there is a longer headway for the trains, it will cause the crowd to build up.

SMRT and SBS Transit, in these incidents, did their best to try and communicate with the affected commuters, not just those who are already in the system but even those who are not yet coming into the system, to advise them so that they can consider alternative transport arrangements, which could include bridging buses and regular buses travelling along that same route, but also to take alternative MRT lines. That is the other option for commuters to consider.

Mr Speaker, if I may, this is why we want to continue to expand our MRT network to provide greater resilience, so that in case there is a disruption on one line, there will be alternatives for commuters to take to complete their journey. And this is still a work in progress and I hope to share more during the Committee of Supply (COS) debates.

Mr Speaker: Okay, last supplementary question. Ms Yeo Wan Ling, keep it short. I would like to move to at least Parliamentary Question No 3.

Ms Yeo Wan Ling (Pasir Ris-Punggol): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I declare that I am the Executive Secretary of the National Transport Workers' Union. I recently met with many of our rail workers serving the affected lines and they are proud public transport workers who bear their work with great purpose and a heavy responsibility to commuters and the community. What will the Ministry do to further empower and uplift our rail workers to do their work more efficiently and effectively, given the complexity and age of the infrastructure?

Mr Speaker: Minister Chee, I hope your answer will be succinct as well.

Mr Chee Hong Tat: Mr Speaker, equipping our workers with the skills and the knowledge to be able to do their work effectively, both in maintenance and operations, is certainly a key priority for the One Transport Family. We will continue to invest in this area to upskill our workers and to make sure that they are able to have access to good technologies and a good working environment. And as I have replied to Mr Leong earlier, the staff morale of the teams would also be equally important.

I hope to share more during the COS debates. So, I seek Ms Yeo's understanding that more details would be made available during the COS debates.