More than 3.5 million trips or 40% of daily public transport trips are made on our rail network, which is the backbone of our public transport system. A reliable and resilient rail network supports our goal of “20-minute towns and a 45-minute city”. With this vision in mind, we have been committed to improving the reliability of our rail system.
Currently, the local rail industry employs more than 8,000 rail operations and maintenance workers. About 20% of these workers today are above 55 years old. Our challenge is to maintain this pool, and grow it to the 15,000 workers who will be needed come 2030 to support our expanded rail network operations and maintenance.
A significant amount of the maintenance work today is manual and relies heavily on on-site manpower during the short engineering hours. To circumvent potential maintenance productivity issues and improve our maintenance efficiency for a better network, there is a fundamental need to innovate and automate these maintenance works. This will allow us to minimise the frequency and duration of repair and replacement work, and the reliance on on-site manpower without compromising rail reliability.