Singapore awards S$600mil MRT contracts

Friday, 03 February 2012 10:14

SINGAPORE: Contracts worth more than S$600mil have been awarded by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and train operator SMRT as part of efforts to improve train services and prepare for an expected spike in demand.

The LTA has picked French conglomerate Alstom to supply 18 trains worth S$234.9mil for the North East Line – six more than originally announced – and 16 trains worth S$134mil for the Circle Line.

They will arrive in batches from 2015 and are expected to boost the North East and Circle lines’ peak-hour capacities by 70% and 40% respectively.

The 20km North East Line, operated by SBS Transit, now has 25 six-car trains while SMRT’s 33km Circle Line has 40 three-car trains.

Separately, SMRT has picked Thales Solutions Asia, an electronics giant with its headquarters in France, to rebuild the ageing North-South and East-West lines’ signalling systems.

The signalling system acts ultimately as a safeguard against collisions by pre-determining gaps – called headways – between moving trains.

The S$195mil project will allow trains on the older lines to run at minimum headways of 100 seconds from 2016. That gap is now 120 seconds.

The change will mean a 20% increase in any given capacity, and shorter waiting times for commuters.

The re-signalling project has started and is targeted to be completed by 2018.

The additional trains will increase capacity of the two lines by 27%. This is aside from improvements as a result of the re-signalling project.

The LTA has also awarded a S$40.3mil deal to Thales to build the Tuas West Extension’s signalling system. — Singapore Straits Times

From The Star