There were some postings on social media on Wednesday (19 April) at around 6 pm which indicated that the North-South Line (NSL) was experiencing a delay in the evening.
However, Singapore Mass rapid Transit (SMRT) did not make any official announcement on its Twitter nor Facebook accounts.
A post was written on SMRT’s Facebook page by Facebook user, Tricia Tay.
She wrote, “Hi SMRT, I was wondering why there wasn’t a public announcement for the track fault which happened at Bukit Batok yesterday.”
She noted that the fault caused trains to stall on the track between Jurong East and Bukit Batok for 40 mins before being routed back to Jurong East.
She told SMRT that down times for trains or tracks are understandable. However, she stressed that this should be made known to the public.
“Passengers are accountable to their stakeholders when they are late for appointments due to such held ups, and SMRT should accordingly provide timely updates of such incidents to the public,” she added.
When asked about the incident, Ms Tay said that the incident took place along Platform D of the Jurong East MRT interchange towards Bukit Batok and said another train behind the one that she was in. She noted that the trains were functioning properly on Platform A of the station.
Hazirah Haril also wrote on her Twitter account that the train went still on the track between Jurong East and Bukit Batok.
https://twitter.com/foreheadchin/status/854662073854287873
Chendana posted a photo showing an additional 10 minutes needed for train service on the NSL.
https://twitter.com/chendanaaa/status/854659370382012416
Andre tweeted his disappointment. He told SMRT not to pretend that nothing happened, announcing that the delay only lasted for minutes.
Hey @SMRT_Singapore don't kay siao track fault from Jurong East then last min. then come and announce! WTF!!! cc: @LTAsg #SMRTruinslives
— Andre (@tanandre) April 19, 2017
According to LTA’s reliability report on Jan 2017, there had only been 5 service disruption exceeding 30 mins last year. However, local media along with The Online Citizen has documented a greater number of incidents that exceeded that time.
It is unknown if the Land Transport Authority will include this incident in its reliability report of the transport operator as SMRT did not make any public announcement and neither did any media report of the incident.
