North-South trains to Marina South to run slower
Published 4 hours ago
Melody Zaccheus
Heritage and Community Correspondent
Fabian Koh
To allow fresh concrete to “cure and reach full strength” as part of ongoing track improvement works, some trains will be running slower than usual as temporary speed restrictions have been imposed on affected tracks on the North-South Line (NSL), said SMRT.
This resulted in slower trains and delays yesterday morning which lasted over 11/2 hours.
In a statement yesterday evening, SMRT said it has been carrying out track improvement works during non-operational hours in the NSL south-bound tunnel near Raffles Place MRT station.
These works are slated to be completed by next month, and involve replacing parts of the existing concrete track bed that support the running rails.
On nights when fresh concrete is cast on the track bed, several hours are needed for the concrete to cure.
SMRT’s vice-president for corporate communications, Ms Margaret Teo, said: “As a result, some commuters travelling on the NSL towards Marina South Pier MRT station would have experienced slower-moving trains over a 300m stretch between City Hall and Raffles Place MRT stations.”
She added that the speed restrictions can cause congestion during peak hours when trains, running at two-minute intervals towards the city, need to maintain a safe distance from one another.
“As such, some commuters may experience trains stopping between stations, or longer waiting times at station platforms,” said Ms Teo.
SMRT will progressively lift these speed restrictions in the coming days.
Ms Teo said commuters should, in the meantime, cater up to 15 minutes of additional travelling time on the NSL towards Marina South Pier station during peak hours.
There was also a delay of four hours on the NSL last Wednesday morning for similar reasons and track maintenance works could not be completed before trains started operating.
Marketing strategy consultant Clement Law, 26, was travelling from Admiralty station to Newton station at about 8.30am to get to work when he got caught in the delay.
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Government force commuters to go cashless by March
February 19, 2018
Effecting next month in March, the Singapore government will be removing all cash top-up services at the passenger service centres of every train station. State media Straits Times describe the move similar to drug addiction, calling it “the first step by authorities to wean commuters off cash to pay for public transport.” Passengers who need to top up their EZlink cards with cash will have to use self-help ticketing machines, which is available only until 2020.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong first introduced the cashless initiative during last year’s National Day Rally, where he said he wants to emulate China on eliminating cash transactions. The Transport Ministry soon said that they will remove all cash transactions by 2020.
The casualties of the shortsighted government policy are the elderly, poor and students who usually do not have a bank account or a bank card. The move however will boost the profits of Singapore banks and neighbourhood supermarkets like NTUC, which are all Temasek Holdings-owned corporations. The PM’s wife, Ho Ching, is the CEO of Temasek Holdings, and desperately need additional income domestically to fill her overseas investment losses.
The Singapore government has also set up new coffeeshops which charges an extra 10% for local residents who insist on using cash. At KK Hospital, if one wishes to pay cash for medical services, they will have to walk over a hundred metres to a designated cashier for payment.
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Singapore Budget 2018: Govt puts more money where its mouth is when it comes to buses and trains
Christopher Tan
Senior Transport Correspondent
Published
Feb 19, 2018, 7:29 pm SGT
UpdatedFeb 19, 2018, 9:19 pm
SINGAPORE - Transport expenditure for the financial year 2018 is expected to swell by more than 50 per cent to hit a record $13.7 billion - ranking just behind the $14.8 billion earmarked for defence.
Much of the spending will go towards rail projects such as the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail link and the MRT extension to Johor Baru.
Even if Singapore’s ambition to almost double its MRT network to 360km by 2030 is expected to figure prominently in any Budget, it is still startling to see transport expenditure ranking above health and education, and trailing just a shade behind defence.
It is the first time transport has ranked so high and so near the top-line item.
As recently as FY2013, transport’s expenditure was $6 billion - around half the individual amounts for defence and education, which ranked first and second respectively. And if you went a little farther back, say, FY2000, transport’s share of the budget was not even among the top three.
At $13.7 billion, FY2018’s transport spending had more than doubled in five years.
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http://www.straitstimes.com/singapor...s-to-buses-and
With so much tax payer money being poured into the transport system why then is there still service disruption ?
Service disruption along DTL due to train fault on Friday morning
Published on 2018-02-23 by Martha Soezean
This morning (23 Feb), service disruption occurred along the Downtown Line (DTL). The transport operator, SBS Transit said the cause was due to a train fault.
Commuters started to post tweets about the train delay before 8am; some of them still thought that the DTL is operated by the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT):
At 7:48am Mohammad Taufik informed that announcement was made at Bedok North DTL Station, trains have not moved for 10 minutes in both directions:
Yun said her train was delayed for more than 20 minutes and she was late for school:
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https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/201...riday-morning/
I wonder why the state media did not report this incident . Even new line also got problem . There is something seriously wrong with Singapore’s mrt network . So how Mr Khaw ?
East Coast 4-in-1 bus and rail depot saved taxpayers $2 billion: Khaw Boon Wan
Published 1 hour ago
Zhaki Abdullah
SINGAPORE - The East Coast Integrated Depot, incorporating three MRT depots as well as one for buses, helped saved $2 billion in taxpayer dollars, said Minister for Transport Khaw Boon Wan on Friday (Feb 23).
In a Facebook post, he said the cost of construction of the depot is about $3.2 billion, 40 per cent less than what it would have cost had the four depots been built separately.
He also noted that building the depots separately would have used up an additional 44ha of land, twice the land size of Changi Airport’s Terminal 4.
The depot, scheduled to be completed in 2024, will include depots for the East-West and Downtown MRT lines, as well as the upcoming Thomson-East Coast Line.
The train depot complex will comprise three levels, with the Downtown Line depot located underground, the Thomson-East Coast Line depot at ground level, and the depot for the East-West Line above that.
The three train depots have been designed to operate independently of one another, said a spokesman for the Land Transport Authority (LTA).
continue reading here :
http://www.straitstimes.com/singapor...-khaw-boon-wan
Oops somebody open his mouth . Then why transportation still have the 2nd highest budget expenditure ?
Minister Khaw Boon Wan issues fake news: Singaporeans saved S$2 billion!
February 23, 2018
After spending S$3.2 billion on a centralised railway depot, Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan openly lied that he helped Singaporeans to save S$2 billion by choosing to integrate the four depots into one. The PAP Minister wrote on his Facebook page, plucking the S$2 billion figure from thin air:
“By 2024, this 4-in-1 integrated facility will house three rail depots (Thomson-East Coast Line, Downtown Line, East-West Line) and a bus depot. The construction will cost about $3.2 billion. But if we were to build the four depots as separate depots, we would have to incur an additional $2 billion! So this 4-in-1 solution saves taxpayers a huge sum of money. Besides cost savings, this design also frees up 44 hectares of land – the size of two Changi T4s! A truly excellent example of maximising land use through creative thinking.”
It appears either the Transport Minister’s poor grasp of English resulted in the fake news, or that the minister is deliberately misleading the country when this is an obvious case of “S$3.2 billion spent”, and not “S$2 billion saved”.
The centralised railway depot simply made up of 3 levels, each serving a dedicated train line – East-West, Thomson-East and Downtown Line. Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan however hailed the 3-storey infrastructure as “out-of-the-box creative solution”:
“In 2009, LTA rail engineer Adrian Teo and his project team were given the huge responsibility of building train depots for the Thomson-East Coast Line and Downtown Line. Their brief was to think of out-of the-box creative solutions that are future-proof, safe and also cost effective. And succeed they did! The #EastCoastIntegratedDepot was the team’s innovative answer to our growing infrastructure needs in land-scarce #Singapore.”
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$2b in cost savings’ with integrated rail, bus depot
Khaw says $3.2b complex in east, which pulls together four depots, also saves on land usage
February 24, 2018
By Zhaki Abdullah
The East Coast Integrated Depot, incorporating three MRT depots as well as one for buses, will save $2 billion in taxpayer money, said Minister for Transport Khaw Boon Wan.
In a Facebook post yesterday, he said the cost of construction of the depot is about $3.2 billion, 40 per cent less than what it would have cost had the four depots been built separately.
He also noted that building the depots separately would have used up an additional 44ha of land, twice the land size of Changi Airport’s Terminal 4.
The new depot complex, scheduled to be completed in 2024, will replace the existing Changi depot for the East-West Line. It will include depots for the East-West and Downtown MRT lines, as well as the upcoming Thomson-East Coast Line.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) first revealed plans for the depot – said to be the first such facility of its kind – in 2013.
In 2016, South Korean firm GS Engineering & Construction won a $1.99 billion contract to build the East Coast Integrated Depot. Other contracts, such as those for electrical and mechanical works, make up the rest of the $3.2 billion cost.
GS Engineering & Construction was also involved in the building of the Gali Batu Depot in Woodlands Road, as well as the Fort Canning and Tampines East stations, all on the Downtown Line.
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New MRT trains have ‘tip-up’ seats but S’poreans are having none of it
‘Why not put carpet instead? Everyone can sit on the floor.’
By Fasiha Nazren | February 28, 2018
New features have been unveiled for two new trains on the North-South and East-West Line fleet.
This comes after the Land Transport Authority (LTA) is taking over the North-South, East-West, Circle and the Bukit Panjang LRT Line from SMRT.
The new features include the addition of LTA’s logo on the trains, a reliability improvement feature and the most interesting feature of all, “tip-up” seats.
Tip-up seats
There will be 12 of these tip-up seats per car.
These seats, according to The Straits Times, will have an operator tipping the seats, depending on passenger load.
This mechanism will make room for 100 more passengers on the train, increasing the peak capacity by around 8 percent.
In a report by Channel NewsAsia, the seats will only be folded during the morning and evening peak periods and can only be done by the train driver.
continue reading here :
https://mothership.sg/2018/02/mrt-new-tip-up-seats/
This is another attempt to have more revenue by packing in more commuters despite already being packed like sardines during peak hour. Are the trains safe to travel or not ? Still want to vote for PAP ?
P.S. I am still boycotting travelling on SMRT Trains until there is NO MORE breakdown in services .
‘Tip-up seats’ on new MRT trains to increase standing space during peak hours
28 Feb 2018 12:06PM (Updated: 28 Feb 2018 12:10PM)
SINGAPORE: Twelve new MRT trains will be the first in Singapore to have “tip-up seats” to create more standing space for commuters during peak hours.
The new trains on the North-South and East-West Lines (NSEWL) will have four sets of three tip-up seats located in the centre of each car. The seats will be folded during morning and evening peak periods, and unfolded during off-peak hours to increase seating capacity. This can only be done by the train driver.
The trains, which will also carry the Land Transport Authority’s (LTA) logo for the first time, will have red and green stripes - the colours of the NSEWL - against a white background.
The 12 new trains will also come with an improved Current Collector Device (CCD) shear-off detection feature to provide timely alerts if any of the CCD shoes unexpectedly lose contact with the third rail, which provides electrical power to the train.
The trains are part of the 57 new trains that have been progressively put into service since 2017 on the NSEWL. A total of 47 trains have been delivered, and the remaining 10 will be delivered by the end of this year, bringing the total number of trains on the two lines to 198 - three times the number of trains the NSEWL started with.
The 12 new trains are being built by the Kawasaki Sifang Consortium in China. LTA said it has stationed its engineers at the factory in Qingdao to ensure “consistently high standards” during train assembly and testing.
Trains that have been delivered to Singapore will undergo a further round of tests, LTA added. Once the tests are completed, the trains are expected to be rolled out by the second half of this year.
Read more at
Signal fault causes delay on Downtown Line during morning rush hour
01 Mar 2018 08:16AM (Updated: 01 Mar 2018 08:20AM)
SINGAPORE: Commuters on Thursday (Mar 1) were faced with delays on the Downtown Line caused by a signalling fault, SBS Transit said.
At 6.51am, SBS Transit tweeted that train service towards Expo and Bukit Panjang stations was delayed due to a signalling fault.
Commuters could expect up to 15 minutes delay, the line’s operator said, adding that recovery works were in progress.
At 7.54am, SBS Transit tweeted that free bus services were available between Bugis and Chinatown on both directions.
Read more at
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news...-rush-10001544
New line also got signal fault ? So how Mr Khaw and PAP government why don’t you guys set up an Independent committee of inquiry for all the mrt breakdowns ? Is it fair for your commuters to be late for appointments ; work and school ? Such world class transportation system indeed . So to the commuters do you still want to vote for PAP ?