Commuters will experience longer travelling times on the Sengkang-Punggol LRT (SPLRT) on Sunday mornings in January and February next year. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said yesterday that there will be limited services on stretches of the SPLRT on six Sundays, to facilitate maintenance and upgrading work.

While all SPLRT stations will open at 5:30am as usual, there will be train services on only one platform at selected segments until 7:00am, with the other platform opening after 7:00am.

LTA said operator SBS Transit will increase the frequency of trains on the operational platform, to cope with the increase in passenger load. The limited train services is to facilitate 'enhanced preventive maintenance and asset renewal works', which require additional engineering time, said LTA.

Works include the progressive replacement of viaduct bearings and the strengthening of the crosshead structures that support the SPLRT viaducts.

LTA said that while cracks were found on the crossheads during regular inspections, these were assessed to not be of any safety risk to commuters and did not compromise the load-bearing capacity of the crossheads. Rectification of the cracks will be carried out as a precautionary measure and these works will be completed by 2020.

Other renewal works being done on the SPLRT include the replacement of the SPLRT's power rail and power rail assemblies, along with maintenance of the signalling switch machines and cables. These will be completed by 2022. LTA said schedules for the limited SPLRT services after February will be announced at a later date.

Separately, LTA said a project to install a new power supply intake source for the Bukit Panjang LRT (BPLRT) at the Junction 10 substation was completed last week.

The existing power supply intake source at Choa Chu Kang MRT substation will be retained as a backup, providing the LRT system with additional redundancy. LTA added that it would be awarding a contract early next year for the replacement and renewal of other major BPLRT systems.

Since it opened in 1999, the BPLRT has had reliability issues. Built into an existing town, the BPLRT has a design featuring sharp turns over undulating terrain.

LTA Deputy Chief Executive for Infrastructure and Development Chua Chong Kheng said, "With the completion of these renewal works, commuters can expect more reliable journeys." In a statement yesterday, LTA also released the mean kilometres between failure (MKBF) figures for the LRT network, which reflect how long a train travels before experiencing a delay of longer than five minutes.

The MKBF for the LRT network increased to 70,000 car-km for the first three quarters of this year, up from 49,000 car-km for the whole of last year.