KHAW: MRT 3 TIMES MORE RELIABLE SINCE HE BECAME TRANSPORT MINISTER

The MRT has improved its reliability by 3 times since 2015 when he was appointed the Transport Minister, Mr Khaw Boon Wan declared yesterday at a conference. His goal however is to set the bar much higher in future.

Khaw Boon Wan is the Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure and Minister for Transport. In 2015, he replaced Mr Lui Tuck Yew as minister for transport.

Speaking at the 4th joint forum on infrastructure maintenance yesterday, Mr Khaw said that Singapore’s MRT traveled an average 133,000km between delays of more than 5 minutes in 2015. Today, the distance traveled has gone up to 400,000 (393,000) overall.

According to Mr Khaw, the Downtown Line and the Circle Line have both exceeded 500,000 (518,000) train-km, while the North South and East West lines achieved 345,000 and 282,000 train-km respectively.

“This is a satisfactory outcome, against our targets of 300,000 MKBF this year, 400,000 MKBF next year and 800,000 train-km by 2020,” Mr Khaw said, adding that he set these targets last year against the best-in-class Taipei Metro, which clocked 800,000 MKBF.

“So I am upping our 2020 target from 800,000 to 1,000,000 train-km,” he declared. “LTA (Land Transport Authority) and the operators are working closely towards this target.”