Singapore’s MRT system has recorded its weakest reliability in five years, with trains travelling shorter distances on average before encountering service delays, based on newly released figures from the Land Transport Authority (LTA).
Between July 2024 and June 2025, the network clocked 1.6 million train-kilometres between delays lasting more than five minutes — the lowest mean distance since 2020, when it stood at 1.45 million train-km.
The data, published in LTA’s Rail Service Reliability Performance 2Q2025 report on 5 September, shows a continued decline from the network’s peak in 2022, when the average reached 2.09 million train-km.
The Downtown Line experienced the sharpest fall, with reliability halving year-on-year — from 8.13 million to 4.12 million train-km.
The North-South Line dropped to 1.24 million, down from 2.49 million. This marks its lowest performance since 2020.
The East-West Line also declined, from 1.69 million to 1.44 million train-km, continuing a downward trend since its 2023 peak.
Only the North-East Line and Circle Line showed improvement. The former increased slightly to 4.23 million, while the latter rose to 1.07 million, up from 919,000 the previous year.
The Thomson-East Coast Line was excluded from the report, as it is not yet fully operational. Its final phase is expected to open in the second half of 2026.
Despite these setbacks, the overall MKBF figure remained above LTA’s stated benchmark of 1 million train-km. However, the continued decline suggests challenges in maintaining previous levels of performance.
Major incidents and service disruptions
The first half of 2025 saw two service delays longer than 30 minutes — one on the Downtown Line and one on the Circle Line — compared to seven such disruptions in 2024.
Among the most serious incidents was a six-day service disruption on the East-West Line in September 2024. The fault prompted a S$3 million (US$2.33 million) fine for operator SMRT.
Additional incidents occurred in February and March 2025:
• On 5 March, a train fault on the Circle Line caused delays between Promenade and Serangoon.
• On 7 February, a breakdown of an engineering vehicle at Bishan depot disrupted North-South Line operations for most of the day.
• Signalling faults on 10 and 11 February caused morning delays on the North-East and Circle Lines.
The LTA noted that incident figures remain subject to change, pending ongoing investigations.
International comparison and LRT improvement
Converted into car-kilometres, the MRT network recorded 7.7 million car-km between delays, ahead of:
• Hong Kong MTR: 4.29 million car-km
• New York City Subway: 187,000 car-km
However, it lags behind the Taipei Metro, which achieved 19.1 million car-km in 2023.
Singapore also compares favourably in terms of major delay frequency. It registered 0.13 service delays over 30 minutes per million train-km in 2023 — a lower figure than Tokyo Metro, Osaka Metro, and Yokohama Subway.
Meanwhile, Light Rail Transit (LRT) reliability improved.
The Sengkang-Punggol LRT saw its MKBF more than double to 1.25 million car-km, while the Bukit Panjang LRT rose slightly to 247,000.
System-wide, the LRT averaged 534,000 car-km between delays, up from 382,000 the previous year.
No LRT delays longer than 30 minutes were recorded in the first half of 2025.
Minister Siow responds to incidents
Following several high-profile incidents, Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow addressed public concerns in a Facebook post on 6 August 2025, describing the situation as “disappointing”.
“This series of recent incidents is disappointing for all of us, and we can and will do better,” he wrote, referring to the multiple faults that affected rail services in recent months.
His comments followed a five-hour disruption on the East-West Line in early August caused by a point machine fault near Jurong East station. According to SMRT Trains President Lam Sheau Kai, the fault occurred in equipment responsible for controlling train routing at junctions.
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