Efficient Deployment of Buses during Train Breakdowns to Minimise Disruption to Commuters

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for Transport whether the Ministry (i) monitors whether sufficient buses are deployed at each affected MRT station during breakdowns and whether these buses are deployed efficiently enough to minimise disruption to commuters; and (ii) takes these two factors into consideration in evaluating the performance of the operators.

If bus bridging services are required during a service disruption, the rail operators must comply with the standards set out in LTA's Code of Practice. These include the time taken for the bus bridging services to be activated and deployed, as well as the headways for such services. LTA monitors the deployment of these services through officers on the ground and from the Land Transport Operations Centre. If the operators fail to deploy the bus bridging services adequately or appropriately, they may be penalised.

However, we should be realistic about the effectiveness of bus bridging services during any large-scale service disruption. The capacity of a bus is much smaller than that of a train. It takes almost 20 buses to carry the load of one train. Hence, the only satisfactory way forward is to improve the reliability of our train system, reduce frequency of disruptions, avoid large scale disruptions, speed up fault identification and train service recovery. For the longer term, we have to increase the resilience of our train network by building another orbital line like the Cross Island Line. This will create multiple interchanges with our existing lines and provide commuters with more alternative rail routes in the event of any service disruption.