SINGAPORE: The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has begun a probe into the six-day disruption of train services on the East-West Line between Jurong East and Buona Vista stations.
The investigations are expected to be completed in a few months, said LTA, and the findings will be made public.
Investigations will be conducted across a number of areas.
“First, we will investigate the root cause of the axle box failure. LTA’s investigations will include a forensic study into the nature of the axle box failure, and identify any other potential contributory factors that led to the incident,” said the authority.
It will also look into the procedures involving fault detection and incident handling, and determine if appropriate actions were taken.
Finally, LTA will review the service recovery and disruption mitigation effort, to “ascertain the timeliness and comprehensiveness of the responses taken” by train operator SMRT.
The Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) will also be carrying out an independent safety investigation on the disruption, said the Ministry of Transport.
To support its investigations, LTA will appoint an Expert Advisory Panel (EAP) to review the findings and advise on technical matters.
The panel will be chaired by Mr Malcolm Dobell, former Head of Train Systems for London Underground, and comprises five other local and overseas experts:
- Dr Tony Lee and Mr Chen Chao, both of whom have extensive expertise in rail operations and maintenance;
- Mr Chew Tai Chong, who has expertise in rail system engineering and train design
- Professor Gan Hiong Yap, who has expertise in railway engineering
- Professor Manoj Gupta, an expert in material science with a background in mechanical engineering
