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<TD vAlign=top width=784 colSpan=2>Ex-SMRT CEO defends maintenance regime at court hearing
By Hetty Musfirah | Posted: 10 May 2012 1819 hrs
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Former SMRT CEO Saw Phaik Hwa (R) took the stand at Thursday's Committee of Inquiry hearing. (Photo: Hon Jing Yi) | ||||||
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SINGAPORE: Train operator SMRT had planned for further checks after Singapore's first major train disruption on 15 December last year but the Land Transport Authority (LTA) had asked for "services to resume as soon as possible."
This was what former SMRT CEO Saw Phaik Hwa said in her testimony on Thursday at the public inquiry on the train disruptions.
However, Ms Saw was unaware if the intention for more checks was communicated to LTA .
=> Too lazy even to verify! How ridiculous can these overpaid FAT CATs be!
She also defended SMRT's maintenance regime. She said she was at a company function when the first evening peak-hour disruption occured.
But she was kept informed of the developments by senior management staff .
=> Should she not be on the ground to take charge of the situation instead of carry on wining and dining? Absolutely BOCHUP!
Closer to 9pm, she was told the situation was under control.
Later, she received another call from executive vice-president of trains, Khoo Hean Siang, who said services should not resume even though faults had been rectified.
Mr Khoo also recommended a complete check.
But it appeared this intention was not communicated to the LTA .
Ms Saw was also questioned on issues concerning maintenance such as the budget for it.
She said the maintenance budget had not been declining and that higher productivity was a reason that kept costs low .
=> like 1 worker doing 2 workers' job?
She said SMRT had performed significantly better than standards set upon it, and that SMRT always strives to do better.
Ms Saw also shared how SMRT had planned for massive disruptions due to security breaches, but not claws dropping from the third rail.
She said such an incident has " never happened anywhere in the world ."
Still, she said the impact of the disruptions was " as great as several bombs going off."
This meant SMRT should have classified the incident as "Ops Red 1" - the highest classification under SMRT's Rail Incident Management Plan, even though there were no casualties.
This was because there was a need to get external agencies to help cope with the large crowds.
The court heard that prior to the December disruptions, a Board member had raised concerns over the higher number of train disruptions due to faults.
A scheduled presentation to give an explanation at a meeting on 28 October 2011 did not take place due to a lack of time .
Ms Saw said there are many reasons for train faults in recent times. She said there's a need for the half-height platform screen doors that were installed recently to work in sync with the signalling system, as any delay or misalignment can cause a fault.
A bug with new trains that are pumped into the system was another cause. Higher train frequencies and rainy weather can also cause track faults, due to design of the current signalling system.
"If not for these factors, I think our performance would not be affected," said Ms Saw.
=> Does she mean that systems in HK, Taiwan, Japan, etc do not operate in inclement weather, etc? Btw, how much is she paid?
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