Mobile network in MRT Circle Line to be restored by noon on Saturday
Published 11 hours ago
Chew Hui Min
SINGAPORE - Mobile service on the Circle Line will resume from 11am on Saturday (Nov 5), and can be expected to be fully restored by noon, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said on Friday night.
Mobile service on the MRT line has been halted since Friday (Nov 4) morning as SMRT and LTA tested for the source of signal interference that has disrupted train service.
LTA said in a Facebook post: “The mobile network will be progressively restored within the CCL from 11am on Saturday and is expected to be fully up by noon.
“We thank commuters for their patience and understanding.”
It added that the temporary suspension of mobile signals in the Circle Line was to fully investigate all possible causes of the interference.
“The information gathered will be studied. Both LTA and SMRT will continue their investigations,” LTA said.
Telco M1 said on Facebook that mobile service will be progressively restored from 11am on Saturday.
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Mobile services back on Circle Line
Published Nov 6, 2016, 5:00 am SGT
Tiffany Fumiko Tay
Mobile service on the Circle Line resumed yesterday, with commuters finally able to call, text and access the Internet after a day’s suspension.
After the Land Transport Authority’s (LTA) announcement last Friday night, the three telcos - Singtel, StarHub and M1 - restarted service between 11am and noon.
Tests were carried out during the shutdown to isolate the cause of the signalling faults that have affected the line since Wednesday morning.
The mysterious signal interference that plagued the Circle Line in late August, causing disruptions with slower train speeds and reduced service frequency for a week, resurfaced two months later.
Dr Park Byung Joon, SIM University senior lecturer in urban transport management, said finding the source of the issue is more challenging than people think.
“It is harder to find the source when it is an intermittent interference than one that is always there. With a constant source, it is easier for radar systems to detect.
“The problem is it happened two months ago and then came back, meaning whatever it was is still there.”
While nothing is being ruled out at this stage, Dr Park said the authorities appear to be zeroing in on signal interference, which “means that an electromagnetic field somewhere is interfering with their signalling system”.
He said the interference could come from any number of sources, including the mobile network, or nearby buildings with underground equipment that emanates strong electromagnetic fields.
By suspending the mobile services, Dr Park said the authorities would be able to eliminate the network as the cause, and also declutter the saturation of disruptive frequencies in the air, making it easier to find the source.
In a joint statement in September, the LTA and rail operator SMRT said they were installing “spectrum analysers” to detect the presence of interfering signals.
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http://www.straitstimes.com/singapor...on-circle-line
Bet they cannot find the source of the interfering signal .
Rail reliability slips in second quarter, East-West line worst performer: LTA
Published 40 min ago
Christopher Tan
Senior Transport Correspondent
SINGAPORE - Singapore’s MRT reliability slipped slightly in the second quarter of the year, with one disruption recorded for every 158,000km clocked, down from 159,000km in the first quarter.
Major disruptions on the rail network - or those lasting 30 minutes or more - remained high. According to figures just released by the Land Transport Authority, there were 10 on the MRT system and eight on the LRT lines.
In the first quarter, there were four recorded on each of the two networks. And for the whole of last year, there were 15 in each network.
Of the lot, the East-West MRT line was the worst performer. It chalked up four major breakdowns in the first six months - already exceeding the total of three it had for the whole of 2015.
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Parliament: Replacing Bukit Panjang LRT with bus-only transport system not feasible, says Khaw
Published 2 hours ago
Adrian Lim
SINGAPORE - Replacing the problematic Bukit Panjang LRT (BPLRT) system with a bus-only transport system is not a feasible option, Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan told Parliament on Wednesday (Nov 9).
This is because the road network in Bukit Panjang will not be able to cope with the increased congestion, he added.
Instead, a study is ongoing to see how the 17-year-old system can be re-designed and upgraded to boost reliability and performance, he told the House, in reply to Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Holland-Bukit Timah GRC).
The future of the BPLRT was on the table last month (Oct 2016), after an SMRT blog said several options were being considered by the rail operator and Land Transport Authority (LTA), which include scrapping it.
Mr Khaw, however, dismissed this possibility on Wednesday, saying that it is not feasible. He said that many key components of the BPLRT, including the trains, power rail and the signalling system, are coming to the end of their design lives in about four to five years’ time, and will have to be replaced.
“We are taking this opportunity to re-do the BPLRT to enable a step jump in reliability. Fortunately, there are now better technology and designs available compared to 17 years ago,” Mr Khaw noted.
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Authorities ‘very close’ to identifying cause of Circle Line signal interferences, says Khaw
Published 2 hours ago
Adrian Lim
SINGAPORE - The authorities are “very close” to uncovering the cause of the disruptions on the Circle Line MRT system, said Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan.
He told Parliament on Wednesday (Nov 9) he was confident that the investigation findings, along with how the problem will be fixed, will be made known to the public in a few days’ time.
“The cause is clear - that there is, or there was signal interference. A particular signal is interfering with our wireless signalling system and causing some of this difficulty,” Mr Khaw said, in reply to Non-Constituency MP Dennis Tan.
“But tracking down the cause of the signal requires a lot of efforts and is intellectually very challenging because there are many possibilities and we just got to (go), one-by-one, through elimination, and try to establish what exactly is the cause,” he added.
Similar problems resurfaced last Wednesday (Nov 2) and caused a disruption of about three hours, affecting thousands of commuters.
Later in the week, telco operators also temporarily suspended mobile services along the Circle Line, so investigators could narrow down the source of the signal interference .
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http://www.straitstimes.com/singapor...-interferences
In other words still have not solve the problem. Such a small area too .
Cause for CCL disruption to be out ‘in few days’: Khaw Boon Wan
By Toh Ee Ming
Published: 3:10 PM, November 9, 2016
SINGAPORE — The Government will reveal the exact cause of interference that has repeatedly disrupted train services on the Circle Line (CCL) within this week, said Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure and Minister for Transport Khaw Boon Wan in Parliament on Wednesday (Nov 9).
Responding to a question on improvements to MRT service disruptions, Mr Khaw said the signal problem that has been plaguing the CCL since September is a “very interesting incident” that has challenged his team for several weeks.
While the cause was clear – that there was a particular signal interfering with the trains’ wireless signalling system – he said tracking it down requires a lot of “effort”, as it would take time to eliminate the various possibilities one by one.
“Within this week, we will be able to go public on what exactly was the cause and how we have been able to fix it,” he said.
On the question of reliability, he pointed out that Singapore’s rail reliability has improved, as its MRT trains now travel 158,000 train-km between delays of more than five minutes, up from the performance in 2015 of 133,000 train-km.
But he admitted Singapore is still quite “far off” compared to Hong Kong MTR’s performance of 360,000 train-km and Taipei Metro’s 800,000 train-km. It has also still some way to go in reaching its target of 400,000 train-km by 2018 and 800,000 train-km by 2020 for its MRT lines.
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Circle Line wireless signal interference due to faulty hardware on a single train
An intermittent failure of the signalling hardware on one train, Passenger Vehicle 46 (PV46), was identified as the cause of the wireless signal interference in November, with a “strong likelihood” that it was also the cause of September’s disruptions, LTA and SMRT say.
By Lianne Chia
Posted 11 Nov 2016 11:36
Updated 11 Nov 2016 11:40
SINGAPORE: The findings on the cause of the wireless signal interference on the Circle Line were released on Friday (Nov 11), with the intermittent failure of the signalling hardware on one passenger train identified as the cause.
According to the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and SMRT, the intermittent hardware failure between Nov 2 and Nov 6 caused about 100 occurrences of loss of signalling communications on trains travelling in the proximity of Passenger Vehicle 46 (PV46).
“The loss of communications on these trains resulted in their emergency brakes being automatically activated, which is a safety feature,” both parties said in a press release.
The joint team of LTA, SMRT, signalling system manufacture Alstom, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), the Defence Science and Technology Agency, DSO National Laboratories, the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and electro-magnetic interference specialist Rohde & Schwarz had spent several weeks investigating the incidents.
Ongoing investigations also indicate a “strong likelihood: that PV46 was the cause for the about 200 occurrences of loss of signalling communications on Circle Line trains between Aug 28 and Sep 2, they added.
TELECOMMUNICATION SIGNALS NOT THE SOURCE
LTA and SMRT also noted that an initial hypothesis was that interference from telecommunication signals may have caused the repeated activation of the trains’ emergency brakes.
To test this, LTA, IMDA and the three telcos suspended mobile telecom services across the entire line for two hours on Nov 3, and then for a full day on Nov 4. “These tests showed that telecommunication signals were not the source of the interference,” LTA and SMRT said.
Earlier, Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan said the Circle Line disruption is “interesting” and has been challenging for his team, which had to eliminate possible sources for the signal disruption one by one.
Intermittent signal interference caused disruption and multiple delays on the Circle Line for nearly three hours on Nov 2, which resulted in mobile signals being shut off temporarily over the following two days.
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Meet the defence engineers who cracked the mysterious Circle Line case
Published 1 hour ago
Christopher Tan
Senior Transport Correspondent
SINGAPORE - Engineers Mui Whye Kee, Cheng Heng Ngom and Benedict Koh were the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) experts who helped solve the mysterious glitch which affected the MRT Circle Line in recent weeks.
This was revealed by Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen on Facebook on Friday (Nov 11).
Together with a Defence Science Organisation team led by Chian Teck Keong, they identified a train with faulty signalling hardware as the cause of a glitch which affected service from Aug 28 to Sept 2, and from Nov 2 to 6.
Mr Mui and Mr Cheng were prize-winning engineers who bagged the prestigious defence technology prize this year and last year, respectively.
“In modern battles, the opponent who rules the airwaves has the decisive advantage,” Mr Ng said. “We have many professionals in DSTA and DSO National Laboratories who spend a good part of their careers becoming experts in the field.
“So, when the Circle Line had problems with signal interference, it presented an opportunity for them to help and put their expertise to good use.”
The engineers first showed that radio signals could disrupt trains.
“But where were the rogue signals coming from? Like good detectives, they analysed the clues, eliminated other suspects and caught the culprit - train PV46, carrying faulty hardware,” the minister said.
The mysterious glitch was initially attributed to several causes - from a recent software upgrade to telecommunication signal interference to sabotage.
There was no shortage of theories from netizens either, with some saying half in jest that since the first episode was during the Hungry Ghost Month, paranormal mischief was at play. Others cited manga monsters, as the Pokemon Go craze was then at its height.
The signal interference first appeared on Aug 28, and persisted till Sept 2, when it ceased as suddenly as it started.
Over those six days, rail operator SMRT, suspecting a new software, rolled back the update, but the glitch continued.
Telco signals were switched off along certain stretches of the line, but before any findings could be made, the glitch stopped.
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Cooperation on Circle Line disruption a demonstration of what Singapore can do: Ng Eng Hen
By Loke Kok Fai
Posted 13 Nov 2016 15:15
Updated 13 Nov 2016 15:20
SINGAPORE: Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said the multi-agency effort to identify the cause behind recent disruptions to the Circle Line showed what combined collaboration could do for Singapore, when unconfined along departmental or organisational lines.
“It’s not possible for one agency to have all capabilities,” said Dr Ng in response to questions on the sidelines of the Republic of Singapore Air Force’s (RSAF) Exercise Torrent 2016 on Sunday (Nov 13).
“In this particular instance, the Defence Science and Technology Agency and DSO have experts in signals. GovTech - even though it’s very young, had experts in data analytics, very bright young minds, and the Land Transport Authority and the Ministry of Transport showed great leadership in bringing all these capabilities together,” said Dr Ng.
Moving forward, he said problems and solutions in Singapore will also require this approach, whether capabilities are gathered within Singapore or externally.
“Whatever it is it gives us great confidence that we can solve the problem quickly,” said Dr Ng.
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Delays on North-East Line for over an hour on Monday morning due to train fault at Outram Park station
Published 3 hours ago
Updated 2 hours ago
Derek Wong
Zhaki Abdullah
SINGAPORE - A train fault that occurred at Outram Park station caused delays on the North-East Line (NEL) for more than an hour on Monday (Nov 14) morning.
Full service resumed at around 10.30am with free bus rides and bridging buses services still available at designated bus stops.
SBS Transit tweeted the delay at 9.33am, warning of an additional 15 minutes of travel time along the NEL.
At 9.56am, SBS Transit tweeted that free bus rides were available at designated bus stops between Harbourfront and Dhoby Ghaut stations.
SBS Transit announced that full service had resumed at 10.36am.
Commuter Christopher Goh, 44, who works in the jewellery line, was on his way to Dhoby Ghaut station from Buangkok station. He spoke to The Straits Times at Serangoon station at about 10am.
“It took me 35 minutes just to get from Buangkok station to Serangoon station. The train stops at every station for about five to 10 minutes. Quite a lot of people exited at Serangoon to take the bus but I chose to wait. I now have to explain why I am late for work,” he said. The commute from Buangkok to Serangoon station usually takes approximately 10 minutes.
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http://www.straitstimes.com/singapor...m-park-station
I simply love the Singapore MRT system . Such world class .