SINGAPORE — Details of the revised penalty framework for train operators are expected to be announced this month, said Senior Minister of State for Transport Josephine Teo.

The review followed a high-level Committee of Inquiry recommendation that the Land Transport Authority (LTA) improve its oversight of train operators’ maintenance and handling of incidents, following two major breakdowns in December 2011.

Under the revised framework, the LTA is expected to adjust penalties for failure to comply with operating performance standards and codes of practice. The LTA said last year it intends to peg the maximum fine for a disruption to a percentage of an operator’s annual fare revenue for the affected line. The current cap is S$1 million per incident.

“The idea is that you want the penalty framework to reflect the severity of the problem and you also want to address the issue of operators taking this problem seriously,” said Mrs Teo.

“From this year onwards, in 2015 and 2016, we will be seeing many more trains arriving and being deployed into the system. When you have an expanding system and you are running more train services, the reliability issue becomes more acute,” she said.

Associate Professor Anthony Chin from the National University of Singapore suggested using lost productivity to measure the penalty: “If you peg the penalty to that lost productivity and how many people were affected, that’s your variable component. If you don’t deliver, this is the fixed fine. But if it affects (many commuters), then you have to pay the variable cost.”

Commuters on Saturday experienced the year’s first major disruption, when services along the North-South line were disrupted for one-and-a-half hours following a power outage.