This publication reported yesterday (31 Jul) about an LRT malfunction on Thursday, 28 Jul (https://theindependent.sg.sg/lrt-failure-scares-commuters). SMRT which only responded to the complainant, Ms Jacqueline Bong, when she made the complaint on Thursday saying, “Hi Jacqueline Bong, we apologise for your experience. Rest assured that we treat this incident seriously and we will investigate it. Thank you,” has now given a more lengthy explanation about what happened on that day.

SMRT acknowledged that the incident happened at around 11.51am on 28 Jul and that the LRT skipped Jelapang station due to a fault on the train’s antenna that ensures trains stop accurately at each station. This was also why the train was not able to pick up the signal to stop at the next three stations.

The train operator however blustered the complainant’s claims that was travelling at high speed scaring commuters on the train, saying: “We have confirmed that the train did not exceed 55 km.”

In its statement SMRT further confirmed that the Emergency button in its trains, which it calls the ‘Emergency Halt Request button’, only works when the train comes to a complete stop at a station. This it explained was to prevent the train from moving off again.
SMRT emergency button