Debated in Parliament on 29 Jan 2015.
Mr Baey Yam Keng asked the Minister for Trade and Industry under which Government agency's purview do the operations and safety of the Sentosa monorail come under.
The Senior Minister of State for National Development (Mr Lee Yi Shyan) (for the Minister for Trade and Industry) : Mdm Speaker, Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC) is the statutory board that oversees the operations and safety of the Sentosa Express. The operations of the Sentosa Express are managed by Sentosa Leisure Management (SLM), which is fully owned by SDC.
SLM outsources the maintenance of its trains and tracks to SMRT, which has a team of 16 professionals on site at the Sentosa Express Depot. The SMRT team undertakes routine preventive maintenance works, troubleshooting of minor issues as well as repairs of the trains and tracks. A technical team from SLM works closely with the SMRT team as well as the Sentosa Express' Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), Hitachi Asia Limited, to undertake a range of regular inspections as well as procure and replace parts.
Mdm Speaker, a few questions for the Senior Minister of State. I would like to ask: when SDC maintains or operates the monorail, what are the guidelines or regulatory requirements that it adheres to? Which Government agency in Singapore is responsible for enforcing or regulating that aspect? I note that SLM's reply in the Forum page that it is according to the required standards for railways in Japan. Does that mean that the Japanese authorities come and certify the monorail? Which is the Government agency in Singapore that is responsible?
My other question is about the 4 December incident where 61 people were stranded for four hours on the monorail: how do we prevent such an incident from happening again? Industry observers say that the system does not have a walkway that would enable passengers to be rescued easily. Will this pose a danger for passengers on the Sentosa monorail, and how can we further enhance this system?
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Madam, I thank the Member for the supplementary questions. Yes, it is true that the monorail system, Sentosa Express, follows the stringent requirements of the Japanese monorail system, which is not just used in Japan, but also in China and some Middle Eastern countries. With the OEM's recommended maintenance schedule and parts replacement, SLM working with SMRT carried out those inspections. Some of them are daily; some of them are weekly; others are at the longer intervals. SDC itself also commissions independent audits to make sure that operationally, it is safe and professionally managed. On certain aspects, for instance fire safety, they will have to comply with SCDF's requirements.
Let me explain a little further about the 4 December incident. For the monorail to run, there is a swinging arm on the monorail and there is a power line that is semi-embedded along the track to supply the power. This arm will have to be in contact with the power line in order to tap on power for it to move. As soon as there is no contact, the train will stop. Unfortunately, in this case, at one end of the terminal, at the Beach Station, the power line has lost some tensile strength. Over a period or a long time of use, the power line can be slightly dislodged, and that was what happened. So, when the train moved off, it entangled the power line and started to cause damages on both sides.
The first train suffered some damage; the subsequent train which was the one that carried the 61 passengers, got its arm dislocated and was stuck there. The passengers were safe; there was no fire. The train was made of non-combustible materials, both internally as well as the structure. A series of recovery actions started. The first thing that the train company SLM did was to send a rescue train to come in and bring the passengers away. Within the next hour, all passengers had moved on to the rescue train.
But the second problem, which was not expected, happened. After they transferred all the passengers to the rescue train, because it was on a slope, the new train could not have power to decouple from the stuck train, to move on. A week later, there was a series of enactment and study, and they figured that if they had increased enough power, the train could have actually moved off. On the instruction manual, it was recommended for them to use P1 gear, instead of P2. So, with simulation and so on, they discovered that that could be done.
What SLM, together with Hitachi, has done is to revise the manual and improved the design of the power line at both ends of the station, such that even if the power line gets weakened over time – because it is metal – there is some protection so that it will not be protruding externally to cause the damages.
I think they have taken reasonable steps to prevent such incidents from happening. Monorails all over the world do not, like MRT, have a tunnel where you have evacuation
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route, railing or steps on the side. With its kind of design, passenger load and its slow speed, we are reasonably confident that such an incident will not happen in future.
The four hours that the media referred to was by the time the last person was evacuated. Actually, the evacuation took place soon after. Because it was a one-by-one kind of operation, it took a while to get everybody – 61 people – out of the train.
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