Today’s Straits Times reports about LTA reviewing the penalty framework for MRT breaches. Everyone’s very mad about all the recent MRT breakdowns, particularly the two major incidents in December 2011. We’re all thinking that the MRT operator should be fined heavily. But do you wonder, at the end of the day, who really pays for the fines? If the operators’ bottom lines are affected by these penalties, or side-effects of such penalties (e.g. increased maintenance costs), they’ll ultimately petition the…

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The last couple of days we’ve been entertained by the public inquiry into the spate of SMRT disruptions. We’ve just come to the juicy part where SMRT ex-CEO Saw Phaik Hwa gets grilled. Not unexpectedly, we’re going to learn about many more things wrong about SMRT. One of the key issues is about the maintenance budget set by SMRT had not kept pace with the growing ridership. To cut a long story short, Ms Saw claimed a mid-life refresh had averted…

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The SMRT breakdown yesterday could have been easily averted. A power supply earth fault had brought down their communications backbone network, and that disrupted their train signally and hence te trains could not run. Now, I suppose they do have UPS backup power, but probably just not enough of it. If only they had enough batteries, the 2.5 hrs of downtime could have been averted. It seems like such a silly thing for network equipment to run out of power….

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Transportation is in the hot seat lately. Last week, it was about our Transport Minister justifying that MRT breakdowns are unavoidable (see The New Singapore Standard for Train Service). This week, we are told to be prepared for more shutdowns. I’m disappointed. These stunts are what I call “managing expectations”. Or more appropriately here, “managing disappointments”. I’m annoyed because “managing expectations” is what books teach me to do to other people. It doesn’t feel so great when others practice what you’ve…

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