Maintaining MRT system more complex as network ages: ST roundtable panellists

SINGAPORE – As Singapore’s rail network ages and requires more maintenance, the challenge is not just the financial cost of replacing old systems and upgrading trains, but also the inconvenience caused to commuters.

Delays and disruptions arising from maintenance works can affect daily travel, and these impacts must be minimised, panellists said at an In Perspective roundtable hosted by The Straits Times on April 21, where they discussed how smart technologies will shape the future of travel in Singapore.

“There is also a non-monetary cost because delays, or being unable to travel because of maintenance programmes, (are) borne by commuters, and we need to minimise that as well,” said Associate Professor Raymond Ong from the National University of Singapore’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Recent examples include planned disruptions on the Circle Line and East-West Line to facilitate repair and upgrading works.

Beyond ensuring reliability, rail operators should also strive to give commuters certainty, said Dr Samuel Chng, a research assistant professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.

Dr Chng said commuters value clear communication about planned disruptions as much as reliability itself, in response to a question from moderator and ST’s Asia News Network editor Shefali Rekhi, on how upgrading works can be carried out with minimal disruption.

With certainty, commuters can adjust their routines and plan around disruptions, he said.

“It (need) not be one month ahead of time. It could be just in the morning when I wake up… I look at the map and I say, okay, there is a disruption here, there is a traffic jam there, I am going to reroute,” Dr Chng added.

Panellists said maintaining ageing rail assets is becoming increasingly challenging because older systems behave differently from newer ones.

Mr Yee Boon Cheow, deputy chief executive of infrastructure and development at the Land Transport Authority (LTA), said: “How a new asset behaves versus an ageing asset will be different. You (cannot) manage an ageing asset as if it is still new.”

Maintenance teams must adapt the way they manage ageing systems, and one key challenge is determining the right time to renew assets, he added.

While “some assets fail progressively”, others fail in an “(off-the-)cliff-like manner”. Hence, “collecting data to ascertain the condition of assets is very important”, Mr Yee said, because it helps LTA decide when to replace them.

Operators, too, need to collect and analyse large amounts of data so that maintenance processes can be adjusted accordingly, he added.

Prof Ong expressed the same view – effective railway asset management comes down to doing “the right thing at the right place at the right time”, and data is critical to knowing this, he said.

But upgrading legacy rail infrastructure is difficult because railway systems are deeply interconnected, panellists said.

Mr Yee described the railway network as “a system of systems”, where replacing one component often requires upgrades elsewhere.

“If you change a system, (it may) involve upgrading trains. If you add trains, (it may) involve upgrading the power supply system,” he said.

It is not just changing one piece of equipment, as LTA and rail operators have to consider the impact on the whole railway system, Mr Yee added.

Mr Ang Hang Guan, SMRT’s group chief engineering officer, said renewals often involve difficult trade-offs for operators because some works may require partial line closures.

He cited recent Circle Line closures, where sections of tunnel were shut to allow engineers to carry out works to strengthen those parts more efficiently.

There are times when doing the work only during engineering hours every night drags the project out much longer, Mr Ang said.

Panellists agreed that engineering hours – the limited overnight windows between train operations – are often insufficient for large-scale renewal works.

At the same time, commuters still expect the rail system to run regularly, consistently and reliably, said Mr Ang.

When a decision on a renewal is made, SMRT and LTA also need to determine the right time to do it, how long it will take, and which option causes the least inconvenience to commuters, he added.

To help manage ageing assets more effectively, SMRT is piloting a new artificial intelligence-powered platform called Jarvis.

The system collects historical and sensor data from across SMRT’s system to predict faults days before they occur. Through a chatbot-style interface, maintenance teams can quickly access predictions on when equipment may fail, so they can carry out the necessary repairs during scheduled maintenance windows instead of responding only after breakdowns occur.

The pilot is expected to run until the end of 2026, though wider deployment could take several years as SMRT works to integrate decades-old systems, improve data quality and install additional sensors.

Still, panellists noted that AI systems such as Jarvis will not be able to predict every problem, especially sudden electrical faults or unexpected incidents.