Simply how unhealthy is Singapore MRT this 12 months? Now we have the numbers.

Nonetheless, let’s be honest to the individuals working a system carrying billions across the metropolis annually and take a look at some goal measures of reliability to see how huge the issue actually is.

Falling reliability? Sure, however…

Information shops have been fast to grab on the chance, stating that the community reliability for the previous 12 months from Jun 2025 has fallen to the bottom stage since 2020. And sure, that’s true, however it nonetheless stays properly above the goal of 1 million kilometres between failures.

What they failed to say is simply how huge of an enchancment the community as an entire registered from 2018 onward.

Sure, the info doesn’t embody the spate of faults recorded this month, however there have been solely two prolonged disruptions on the MRT community within the first half of 2025, in comparison with seven in 2024. In the meanwhile, we already know that this determine is both going to be matched and even barely exceeded in 2025, however it isn’t prone to be meaningfully completely different from what was reported in earlier years.

So as to add to the angle, right here’s how these numbers evaluate with the usually vaunted Hong Kong MTR:

Extra traces = extra incidents

One of many issues with judging a community’s reliability is that the bigger it grows, the extra incidents are certain to occur and, because of this, seize the general public consideration.

If something, Singapore appears to be bucking that unfavourable development by preserving the variety of comparatively main incidents decrease than earlier than the expansions within the current decade, with the addition of two main traces: DTL and TEL.

That stated, the latter’s hiccups over the past 12 months add to the impression that one thing is amiss with reliability, and it must be famous that its efficiency is just not but counted into the general community statistics, as the road is each new and incomplete. Which is why chances are you’ll really feel a slight disconnect between the official figures and your private expertise, or what the media experiences.

You do have to recollect, nevertheless, that with the addition of the TEL, there at the moment are 40 further kilometres of tracks, stations and dozens of trains. As soon as they endure a fault, it’s good to remind your self that you just wouldn’t even hear about it in the event that they weren’t there.

Can Singapore do higher?

The pursuit of perfection by no means ends, and so long as there’s a disruption someplace every so often, there’s at all times going to be a sense that issues may very well be higher.

When it comes to car-km (not train-km, a barely completely different determine), Singapore continues to be behind Taipei, which is clocking 20 million car-km between faults in comparison with MRT’s 7 million — although it’s nonetheless forward of Hong Kong’s 4 million or, by comparability to a Western community, New York Metropolis’s paltry 187,000.

So, sure, whereas there’s nonetheless room for enchancment, we have now to keep up a way of proportion. Regardless of the unlucky sequence of stumbles reported this month, MRT continues to be very dependable by international requirements—and far, far more so than it was a decade in the past.

Featured Picture Credit score: Unsplash/ @s5a0043