Written Reply by Minister for Transport Khaw Boon Wan to Parliamentary Question on Top Three Causes of MRT Train Delays Not More Than Five Minutes in Past Three Years

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for Transport

a.     in the past three years, what are the top three causes for the incidences of MRT train delays of not more than five minutes;

b.     what measures have been put in place to prevent or minimise such delays; and

c.     whether LTA has set any goals for the MRT operators to prevent or minimise such delays and, if so, what are the goals set.

Reply by Minister for Transport Khaw Boon Wan:

1.     The top three causes of minor MRT delays are passenger actions, train faults and signalling system faults.

2.     Such delays are monitored and addressed by the rail operators and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) through identifying their root causes and remedial measures, including timely renewal of ageing assets. LTA is also working with the rail operators to install more condition monitoring devices to support the early detection and pre-emptive rectification of faults. 

3.     Our priority is to closely monitor and benchmark performance against other operators using the Mean Kilometres Between Failure (MKBF) metric, an internationally recognised measure of rail reliability. As overall rail reliability and MKBF improves, short delays would come down too.