I believe thousands of fellow commuters were greatly affected by SMRT’s Circle Line and North-South Line train disruptions for the past few days (Wednesday, Thursday, and even this morning), especially Thursday night’s case. Many have shared their sentiments on social media websites (facebook, twitters), blogs, and even on political websites like TheOnlineCitizen. Photos and videos that netizens uploaded on the internet has gone viral, and creative netizens even edited the original photos such as the one below:
Ever wonder why the situation was so bad that SMRT Train window glass had to be broken so as to provide ‘sufficient’ amount of ventiliation? For 24 years since its existance of SMRT Trains, I believe no one would have the guts to do such thing. Since the watershed General Election 2011, I realised that fellow Singaporeans started to show acts of bravery, doing things that we used to be afraid of doing it.
Its English translations says that “Singaporeans got guts, but Aljunied residents have it even more.”
I believe many Singaporeans are enraged with policies, implementation and other things that involves both Singaporeans and government related bodies such as the recent SMRT train breakdown incidents.
Why is this so? (From now on I will relate everything to the recent SMRT train breakdown incident)
I believe 1 of the main reason is because of poor efficiency that SMRT has. Last Thursday night (after 7pm when the incident occured), several SMRT buses were taken off from its main revenue bus services to be deployed on MRT bridging service in various affected North-South Line MRT stations ranging from Bishan to Marina Bay.
Allow me to share my experience that I had last Thursday:
I was at Choa Chu Kang Bus Interchange at around 9pm waiting for bus 190 to Bukit Panjang. The moment I saw the long queue at this hour for this bus service towards New Bridge Road Bus Terminal, I already know that something must be wrong with its buses. True enough, some of the buses from this bus service were taken off at the very last minute to be deployed on MRT bridging service, which affects badly, the waiting time for bus 190. I believe this was the same case for some of the SMRT revenue (bus) services as well.
As you may have known that SMRT bus 190 is one of the most popular and high demanding service in terms of ridership, its returned trip from New Bridge Road Bus Terminal back to Choa Chu Kang Bus Interchange, has greatly inconvenience a lot of commuters and it’s believed that some of them did not managed to catch the last bus back.
1 solution I can offer to SMRT management, is that they can work together with SBS Transit, to see whether SBS Transit could provide efficient and reliable MRT bridging service since it has more spare buses definitely, with more new Wheelchair-Accessible Buses (WABs) rolling in. Older SBS Transit buses (such its current Volvo B10M Mark 3 buses and even Volvo Olympian 2-Axle Non Air-Con buses) should not be scrapped when its 17-19 years of lifespan are up , but instead kept it somewhere as spare buses, so that in times of crisis like this, these buses can be deployed immediately with spare bus drivers, so as not to compromise with the frequency of its revenue bus service.
Having said that, these spare buses must be well maintained on a constant basis, like once every month. This is to decrease the chances of having breakdown should this batch of spare buses be deployed on MRT Bridging service, just like the 3 photos below I took below today while I was on SBS Transit Bus 153 to Hougang from Toa Payoh:
While I was on SBS Transit bus 153, I saw this particular bus with this advertisment that caught my attention:
With frequent train breakdowns like this, how can we be assured that our tomorrow will be better? If the CEO of SMRT, Mdm Saw Phaik Hwa, has the ‘brightest mind’, our today and tomorrow will definitely be better, at least in the area of daily commuting activities.
Now let’s talk about this article that I read on The Straits Times this morning.
Title: MRT breakdown: Don’t break the windows, says SMRT
If you are stuck inside a train, never smash the windows or force the doors open.
Stay calm and wait for help.
This was the advice from SMRT, a day after a massive service disruption led to about 4,000 commuters being stuck in trains that had stalled.
One frustrated commuter used a fire extinguisher to smash the glass on the door.
He should not have done so but considering the situation, he will not be penalised, SMRT officials said.
Senior vice-president for communications and services, Mr Goh Chee Kong, said that in the event of a power failure, there is a back-up system that will activate emergency lights within the carriages and provide ventilation.
If commuters have to disembark from the trains onto the tracks, the power supply will be cut off and staff deployed to guide them, he said.
Mr Goh said that SMRT works closely with schools and grassroots organisations to educate commuters on proper procedures to follow during an emergency.
Launched in 2006, the SMRT Community Emergency Preparedness programme reaches out to about 3,000 members of the public each year.
SMRT will continue to work closely with the community on the project, Mr Goh said.
My first question to SMRT is “Is the precious lives of the commuters more important? Or is it the ‘precious’ piece of window more important?”
SMRT’ urge the commuters to stay calm and wait for help. Waiting for help requires time, and by suffocating them in the train, they won’t be able to stay calm.
Common sense tell all of us here that the first thing to do while waiting for help is to break the window like what this brave soul who did it, and yet SMRT told us that we should never smash the windows or force the doors open.
It is also mentioned that there is an back-up system that will activate emergency lights within the carriages and provide ventilation. If there is ventiliation, why do we still see commuters fainting and being sent to hospital? Obviously it is because of insufficient amount of ventiliation that caused the brave soul to exercise his common sense by doing what he needs to do.
According to another article on The Straits Times, “it is believed that the man broke the window as his wife was ill and had difficulty breathing.” This proves to all of us even further that the man exercise his common sense by doing the right thing at the right time.
SMRT, on the other hand, does not exercise common sense, and was being insensitive to commuters like us.
I’m very sure that these 2 words ‘Income opportunity’ in this photo above caught the attention of many enraged commuters like you and me, and this has been spreading around virally on social media platforms such as facebook and twitter.
Therefore, I conclude that:
SMRT’s Efficiency Rating: 0 / 10 (Poor)
Commuters’ Efficiency Level = 10 / 10 (Great)
SMRT’s Common Sense Level = 0 / 10 (Poor)
Commuters’ Common Sense Level = 10/10 (Great)
新加坡人果然有种！ (English Translation: Singaporeans certainly have guts!)
Everyday Life Of A Singaporean 