Train services on the East-West Line were disrupted on Friday morning due to a track fault.
Train operator, SMRT announced in a tweet at 7.09am to inform commuters to expect an additional 15 minutes travelling time from Tanah Merah to Aljunied stations, in the direction of Joo Koon.
SMRT said that the train service was delayed between Tanah Merah and Aljunied on Friday morning due to a train fault.
[EWL]: Estimate 15 mins additional travelling time from #TanahMerah to #Aljunied towards JooKoon due to track fault.
— SMRT Corporation (@SMRT_Singapore) March 17, 2016
[EWL]: Estimate 15 mins additional travelling time from #TanahMerah to #Aljunied towards JooKoon due to track fault.
— SMRT Corporation (@SMRT_Singapore) March 17, 2016
At 7.38am, SMRT revised the delay time to 20 mins.
[EWL]UPDATE: Estimate 20 mins additional travelling time from #TanahMerah to #Aljunied towards JooKoon due to track fault.
— SMRT Corporation (@SMRT_Singapore) March 17, 2016
[EWL]UPDATE: Train service is still available on the East West line.
— SMRT Corporation (@SMRT_Singapore) March 17, 2016
At 7.55am, SMRT further increased the estimated travelling time to 25 mins.
[EWL]UPDATE: Estimate 25 mins additional travelling time from #TanahMerah to #Aljunied towards JooKoon due to track fault.
— SMRT Corporation (@SMRT_Singapore) March 17, 2016
At 7.59am, SMRT announces the service to be avaliable on East-West Line but falls short of announcing whether the service is back to normal. According to LTA, any disruption of more than 5 mins is considered a disruption.
[EWL] UPDATE: Train service is still available on the East West line.
— SMRT Corporation (@SMRT_Singapore) March 17, 2016
Commuter’s complain on Twitter about the disruption.
@SMRT_Singapore Yet another delay on EW line due to fault line problems that can be resolved with good maintenance? Morning March 18
— bill tng (@vanguy79) March 17, 2016
https://twitter.com/ilyhidayati/status/710606643180863488
@SMRT_Singapore Finally, I also encountered train delay even I am not frequently take train to work. Frequency of fault increased.
— Lee CS (@leecs360) March 17, 2016
https://twitter.com/skulletons/status/710610895886426112
https://twitter.com/adlinnx/status/710611337710178305
https://twitter.com/spyderkidz/status/710614497577144322
https://twitter.com/JosephNJK/status/710616673036869632
https://twitter.com/WEIXUANNN/status/710617195764527105
Earlier on 1 March, Minister for Transport, Khaw Boon Wan spoke in parliament about the two options of the Cross-Island Line. In response to the idea of choosing the longer but environmental friendly route, he said, “We know this because when a train gets disrupted and there’s a one-minute delay, within that minute, they can send out maybe 100 tweets to flame LTA or SMRT. So one minute is a lot of time, let alone six minutes. That’s why in the rail industry, they define disruption as anything that causes a delay of more than five minutes and six is more than five.”
Would Minister Khaw be counting the tweets in today’s disruption?
And as what is observed in previous instances, the delay continues even after SMRT announces that the service line is still working.
https://twitter.com/Meriderp/status/710617646484467712
