Passenger capacity to increase up to 50%
As more trains are added to several lines over the next five years, the capacity across these lines is expected to increase by between 25 to 50 per cent to ease congestion.
The ramped up supply is expected to ease congestion during peak hours, especially when the number of passengers have increased from the same period last year.
The North-South, East-West and Circle lines, for instance, saw an average 1.79 million passenger a day in September, a rise from 1.66 million last year.
On the North-East Line, daily ridership went up by 9.6 per cent to 434,000 in September as compared to the same period last year, reported The Sunday Times.
To boost capacity along the North-South and East-West lines by about 25 per cent, public transport operator SMRT will receive a total of 35 new trains. Nine will be delivered by next month and the remainder will be delivered around 2014 to 2015.
SMRT rail strategic planning director Lui Weng Chee was quoted as saying that a six-carriage train can transport up to 1,400 commuters during peak hours.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) is also buying new trains for the Circle Line and North-East line, with the former receiving 16 new trains by 2015 and the latter seeing 12 more trains in about four to five years' time.
The additional trains will result in Circle Line's capacity rising by about 40 per cent, while the North-East line's capacity will increase by about 50 per cent. North-East line is operated by SBS Transit and now has 25 trains.
The Bukit Panjang LRT system will also get 13 more train-cars in 2014 and is expected to increase its capacity by 50 per cent.
Another measure to ease congestion especially in the North-South and East-West lines is the introduction of a new signalling system over the next seven years.
This system, used in cities such as Paris and Taipei, is able to transmit information on a train's exact location and speed to a centralised computer. This allows the distance between trains to be varied depending on speed, and allows the gap between trains to be reduced to 100 seconds during peak hours.
It is already used in the Circle and North-East lines, while the North-South and East-West lines are still using an older signalling system from 1987. The less precise method of this system resulted in gaps of at least 120 seconds between trains as the trains are kept further apart for safety reasons.
LTA told the paper that work is expected to begin next year, and the new system is scheduled for completion by 2016 for the North-South Line and 2018 for the East-West Line. LTA and SMRT are now evaluating tender proposals from different companies.
As most of the work can only take place during “non-revenue” hours, which is a maximum 3 to 4 hours a night, the project will take that long to be finished. But once completed, it is expected to increase train capacity by 20 per cent, according to LTA.
