Experts weigh in on best way to handle an mrt disruption

Despite a series of recommendations by the Committee of Inquiry (COI) in 2012 following two major breakdowns in 2011, the problem of dealing with commuters in the aftermath of a breakdown remains, The Straits Times reported. 

The COI had noted, in particular, that improvements to bus bridging must be made to help stranded commuters. It recommended that SMRT consider designating dedicated bus pick-up points and have bus-bridging services at unaffected MRT stations.

Experts agreed that additional buses could have been better utilised to disperse the crowd. A more effective way would have been to arrange for buses to take commuters to transport nodes, including bus interchanges, where commuters will have more bus services to choose from.

Another good way to deploy the buses is to have them run parallel to the train line, noted National University of Singapore transport researcher Lee Der Horng. "This means people can still use it in lieu of the MRT," said Prof Lee.

Other experts, such as Professor Lau Hoong Chuin of the Singapore Management University (SMU), suggested using existing transit card data to understand commuters' travel patterns at different stations and plan shuttle buses accordingly.

MP (Mountbatten) Lim Biow Chuan, who is on the Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport, noted however that it was not economically feasible for public transport operators, SMRT and SBS Transit, to have too many buses on standby in depots.

"The struggle we have is how many buses do we want to put on standby, do we plan (contingencies) on the basis of one, two or three MRT lines being down?" he said.

To solve this problem of redundancy, experts suggested roping in private bus operators to fill in the gaps during a major breakdown. Woodlands Transport's General Manager Roger Wong, said his company with about 350 buses, would be happy to provide assistance.