SMRT announced that all trains traveling on the North-South Line will pause for 10 minutes around 11pm on Tuesday 28th March. This is when they will be switching over to commence trial on a new signalling system that allows trains to travel at closer intervals. I’m sure this sounds all like good news for train commuters.
Except that, why in the world couldn’t they do the switchover during the daily downtime? How about cutting over at 4am or so, before train revenue hours commence on 29th March?
Oh, wait, so okay, on fuller understanding of their announcement, it does appear that trials have already been done during engineering hours.
I can appreciate how after tests need to be carefully tested in “lab conditions”, then carefully piloted in “real life”. A train signally system, realistically, has to be deployed on the entire system. But doing midway, or rather, at the tail-end of revenue hours seems to suggest that SMRT still has some reservations with the success of the new system.
My suggestion, instead of doing a midway switch, why not run the test for the entire normal operating hours on a Sunday, and make that a free ride day?
Is SMRT not confident at all that the pilot won’t last the entire day?
More interestingly, so if they need a 10 minute pause to switchover on the night of 28th March, when if the new signally system doesn’t work out, would they have another 10 minute pause to revert? Or would they just terminate operation for the rest of the night?
If you need to get home on time, on the night of 28th March, I’d suggest to find alternative transport.
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