Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has ordered the creation of a special committee to investigate the metro system's worst breakdown since it was opened 24 years ago, local media said Saturday. The announcement came hours after a fresh disruption affected service for seven hours Saturday on the North-South line, which included station stops in the busy Orchard Road shopping district.
"What is important is for us now to get to the bottom of the matter and get the system up and running safely again," Lee was quoted as saying on the Straits Times news website. "That is how you restore confidence which people may have felt has been put under some stress,' he said.
On Thursday, a breakdown affected more than 127,000 commuters including thousands trapped in trains stalled underground after a power fault hit the SMRT network's North-South line during the evening rush hour. Thursday's disruption was the worst in the metro system's 24-year history.
Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew, who visited the metro line hit by the outage, was quoted on Channel NewsAsia website as saying metro operator SMRT Corp need to undertake "complete health checks" of all the trains to avert another such episode. Lui also said metro services on the North-South and East-West lines would commence Sunday at a later time of 10:00 am (0200 GMT) instead of 5:30 am in order for transport officials to check the rail system.
Initial investigations showed Saturday's disruption was caused by the same problem that affected service on the North-South line on Thursday, SMRT said in a statement. "We are working round-the-clock to replace the damaged third rail and collector shoes," SMRT said in the statement.
"We are also conducting a full inspection of the system and all the trains." A passenger named only as Jeannie was quoted as saying on Channel NewsAsia's website that she and other commuters were asked to leave their train and walk along the underground tunnel to the nearest station.
During Thursday's service breakdown, stranded passengers had to endure a one-hour wait inside stalled trains before being freed and the entire outage lasted about five hours, although no-one was injured. SMRT, which also runs taxis and buses, further enraged the public when an electronic message went out to its cabbies during the outage saying there was an "income opportunity" to ferry stranded train passengers.
Saturday's breakdown took place after Lui had expressed disappointment at SMRT's handling of the breakdown on Thursday. "This is a very, very serious disruption and better take heed, learn the lessons, improve on the systems," Lui had said in remarks published Saturday in the Straits Times. The publicly listed metro operator is 54 percent owned by state investment agency Temasek Holdings, as of March 2011. Singapore has a population of just over five million. Most are dependent on public transport because of the prohibitive cost of cars.
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