The patchy troubles of the Circle Line continue this week as the SMRT train service gets afflicted by delays for the fourth day in a row.
Crowded MRT station platforms have become an annoyingly common sight for morning rush hour commuters since Monday, with SMRT and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) scrambling to fix “intermittent signalling issues”.
The longer dwell times at Circle Line stations are to be expected for quite some time apparently due to the inability to fix up the troubles during daytime operating hours.
“…as the CCL runs underground, trackside checks and physical interventions can only take place after operating hours although backend system checks are being conducted throughout daylight hours,” SMRT and LTA wrote in a joint press release, apologetic for the nascent inconvenience.
Another day of mad house at Bishan #circle line mrt but today’s just like Monday. The worst days pic.twitter.com/9HX4NUDeYo
— Venus (@Venushew) September 1, 2016
The glitch has been interfering with signalling communication between the track and the driverless trains. Aside from crowded platforms and delayed travel times, commuters will have to deal with jerky journeys as the train applies emergency braking every time it loses communication. Thus why SMRT staff are manually running the trains for now.
For now though, Circle Line regulars will have to add on way more time to their usual travel duration — meaning they’ll have to wake up even earlier to be on time.
