(Superseded) Summary & Reader Response - LTA Article, Draft 3

Update: Draft 3 has been superseded by Draft 4 (posted 12 November 2016).

Summary & Reader Response for Article: LTA – Draft 3

In the news release titled “Trains on the North-South and East-West Lines Safe for Service”, the Land Transport Authority (LTA, 2016) wrote that despite undergoing replacement works, the trains that have been in the media spotlight are safe for service. According to LTA, all new trains are tested before they are put into service. For the defective trains, immediate action was taken to prevent defects from resurfacing during train operation. Hairline cracks that were also discovered during inspection were confirmed to not affect operational safety. Nevertheless, to ensure that there are sufficient trains for commuters, all affected trains were sent back, one at a time, for rectification. Stringent checks were also performed regularly to ensure operational safety of all trains. However, although the LTA claimed to have exercised diligence and accountability in its corrective processes for the defective trains in question, there would have been no need for such action had it improved upon its pre-deployment checks.

The LTA’s news release suggests that it took well-planned steps to eliminate the possibility of future problems for the battery housing component by improving the housing design as well as engaging a different supplier. However, the news release fails to describe in similar fashion the steps to rectify the issue of the cracked draughtscreens. The LTA could have better described its “appropriate action” taken by including details, instead of leaving them to the reader’s conjecture. For example, the LTA could have released an official statement to clarify if it was the manufacturer’s installation process that had to be subject to proper review and revision or if it was negligence from the manufacturer, for the sake of convenience, that led to the installation error despite the installation process being reviewed and approved. Unfortunately, the omission of details such as these in the report may have inadvertently led to questions raised concerning the credibility of LTA’s quality checks. Such was the case when the People’s Power Party (2016) demanded further clarification from LTA as to whether it performed any “due diligence on quality checks” for the trains in question before deploying them.

The LTA’s news release also attempts to alleviate any concerns from the public by asserting that there were no adverse effects of the hairline cracks, which were discovered during routine inspection, on operational safety. To substantiate this statement, the LTA claims to have sought advice from its engineers, as well as the contractor and an external assessor. To further show that the LTA prioritizes safety over deployment availability, the news release mentions that despite presenting no risk to operational safety, the defective trains are being sent back to the factory for replacement works. However, the discovery of such a defect only serves to show that there have been lapses in quality control, as these hairline cracks were found to be caused by impurities in the material used during manufacturing. In an interview, former Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation’s Acting CEO Samuel Lai Man-hay (2016) stated that these defects show that the “quality control of the entire manufacturing process” may be compromised. Therefore, the LTA should have conducted more comprehensive checks so as to ensure that defective trains are not being hastily deployed in order to meet operational needs.

In conclusion, although the news release strives to show that the issues with the defective trains are swiftly dealt with by the LTA, it is important that the LTA continues to endeavour to maintain high safety standards. Commuters’ expectations regarding public transport in Singapore may have grown as a result of being accustomed to train reliability for over two decades (Tan, 2015), and the LTA must consider that the investment of resources into improving pre-deployment processes is more efficient in the long run, as compared to expenditure on corrective processes to fix a problem that could have been prevented in the first place.

References:

Lai, M. H. S. (2016, July 05). Secret Recalls: China manufacturer for MTR secretly recalls 25 SMRT subway trains after cracks found. FactWire News Agency. Retrieved from https://www.factwire.news/en/MTR-securetly-recall.html

Land Transport Authority (2016, July 06). Trains on the North-South and East-West Lines Safe for Service. Land Transport Authority Press Room. Retrieved from https://www.lta.gov.sg/apps/news/page.aspx?c=2&id=0f8b1220-0289-4bef-99c9-b2455f17a66c#_ftn1

People’s Power Party (2016, July 07). People’s Power Party’s statement on defective trains from China. The Online Citizen. Retrieved from http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2016/07/07/peoples-power-partys-statement-on-defective-trains-from-china/

Tan, C. (2015, December 24). MRT’s past ‘teething problems’. The Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/mrts-past-teething-problems