WHY DENMARK CAN REPLACE MRT SIGNAL SYSTEM AT NIGHT BUT SMRT SAY TOO COMPLEX & CANNOT BE DONE?

In a letter to the State Media yesterday, LTA and SMRT claimed that the signalling issues encountered during the replacement of the signalling system was common to cities that had “undertaken similar projects” as the “new system will take months to stabilise”.

We did a check and found that contrary to LTA and SMRT’s claim, this wasn’t the case in Copenhagen where a similar exercise is being undertaken. According to Denmark’s Ministry of Transport, Building & Housing, replacement, installation and trials are all being conducted at night to minimise any on convenience to commuters.

In its public announcement on its website, the Ministry committed that: “The complete replacement of the signalling system is not expected to cause delays. The replacement and installation will be carried out during the night.

Accordingly, the effects of the installation on the daily train operations will be minimised and not cause any major inconvenience for the passengers. A range of test runs of the new signalling system will be conducted during the night in order to ensure that the system is working correctly and spot any possible errors. In this way, the passengers will not experience any delays due to the replacement.”

See: https://www.trm.dk/en/topics/new-signalling-system-on-the-railway/how-will-the-new-signalling-programme-affect-the-passengers So what makes the LTA and SMRT so special?