Apology a ‘turning point’ for SMRT, workers’ morale a concern, experts say

SINGAPORE — Transport analysts have expressed hopes that the apologies by leaders of SMRT and Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan for the recent service disruption on the North-South Line will mark a “turning point” in the company’s train operations.

They also highlighted that the morale of SMRT employees would be a major issue that the rail operator has to handle.

At a media briefing on Monday (Oct 16), the SMRT and Land Transport Authority (LTA) released their findings on why and how MRT tunnels along a part of the line were flooded after a downpour on Oct 7, causing a shutdown of train services at six stations that affected about 250,000 commuters.

Mr Khaw blamed the SMRT team in charge of maintaining the anti-flooding system for the incident, but urged fairness for rail workers who have been “working their guts out” to raise MRT reliability. SMRT’s top management said that the bonuses of the team at fault would be affected.

Experts interviewed by TODAY had mixed views about imposing penalties on the company under the licensing framework, with some pointing to systemic issues that have not been ironed out by SMRT president and group chief executive officer Desmond Kuek in the few years that he has been at the helm.

Mr Khaw said at the press briefing that his preference was not to return to a system of penalties and fines because it created a “very adversarial” relationship between the regulator and operator, but added that the decision rested with the LTA.

Under the Rapid Transit Systems Act, operators can be fined up to S$1 million or one-tenth of their yearly fare revenue for the affected line, whichever is higher.

Dr Walter Theseira, a transport economist from the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), said that the main problem with the framework is that when an operator is penalised, money meant for train operations is taken away.

Although the framework allows for the operator’s licence to be suspended or revoked, he noted that it is not easy to find a new operator with similar expertise to run a rail line.

“It’s a complex problem, and part of what Minister Khaw is alluding to, is that he ultimately wants to look at whether these penalties are productive, in the sense that (the public) gets what they want — better behaviour or more attention to maintenance,” Dr Theseira said.

Professor Lee Der-Horng, a transport researcher from the National University of Singapore, said that retaining the expertise of rail workers and keeping morale high is important, and this team of workers is “critical” to operations.

But in the case of the latest incident, which was due to “human error” as a result of poor maintenance, the penalties should be decided based on the regulatory framework, he added.

On Monday, Mr Khaw also stressed the importance of “troop morale” in battle, saying “no amount of weaponry and good leadership can win the war” if those on the ground are demoralised.

On this, Assistant Professor Zhou Yi from the Singapore Institute of Technology said that the morale of rail engineers is of concern. He also wonders how many Singaporeans will be willing to take on such jobs in future, given the declining pool of young people choosing the engineering vocation.

Dr Park Byung Joon, an urban transport expert from SUSS, said that maintenance and inspection work can be boring, and this, too, can affect the workers’ morale.

As for the work culture at SMRT, Prof Lee said Mr Kuek's reference to “deep-seated cultural issues” in the company pointed to even “deeper” issues.

“He’s not a new CEO; he’s been in the office for many years. This means there are certain things even he himself, as a CEO, is not able to overcome," added Prof Lee. "If he couldn’t get it done, then who can?”

Dr Theseira noted that the incident appeared preventable to some extent. There were “most likely multiple failures in the system that caused this to happen”, he said, which hammers home the importance of SMRT management taking responsibility for the incident.

Addressing the technical problems, Asst Prof Zhou, who is also deputy chair of the Institution of Engineers, Singapore’s railway and transportation technical committee, said that poor water quality could have caused the float switches to fail, tripping up the water-pumping system.

The LTA and SMRT said that the bottom of the stormwater sump pit at Bishan was lined with sludge and mud, but these did not reach the levels of the float switch.

“The float switches are contact sensors. If the water is quite dirty, there might be certain issues with the sensors after many years,” Asst Prof Zhou said.

He suggested that the company employ technology and data analytics in a bigger way. These tools, for instance, can detect the areas with very high water levels or which are critical, and SMRT can raise the frequency of checks accordingly, for “smarter” maintenance planning.

Commuter Koh W M, 35, a brand director who was caught by the breakdown of train services on Oct 7, questioned why it took a while for SMRT to offer answers.

“It’s a sore point for a lot of commuters. So the apologies today make no difference to me. It’s something that has come too late,” he said.

Madam Grace Lee, 59, who works in finance, said that while the operator is putting in place more measures, there was no “excuse” for it not to do the quarterly check on the pumping system in September as it disclosed on Monday.

“When it’s time to check, they should check, and not postpone it and wait another month,” she added.

The faulty pumping system was supposed to have been serviced in September, SMRT said, but this was postponed until Oct 12, because staff members claimed they could not find a time slot to get on the tracks.