LTA notified SMRT of its intention to impose a financial penalty of $3 million for the 25 September 2024 East-West Line Incident (“Notice of Intention”) on 30 May 2025, and provided two weeks for SMRT to submit its representations.

Following SMRT’s response on 6 June 2025, LTA considered SMRT’s representations, and has imposed a financial penalty of $2.4 million on SMRT. The financial penalty will go to the Public Transport Fund to help lower-income families with their public transport expenditures. In addition, LTA has issued a direction to SMRT to invest a minimum of $600,000 to strengthen its capabilities, and address areas of improvement from the incident so as to improve service reliability for commuters.

In reaching this decision, LTA took into consideration the considerable challenges SMRT had faced in planning and executing their overhaul regime for the Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) trains, particularly in procuring the necessary spare parts for the overhaul due to global supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Singapore’s rail system continues to be one of the most reliable rail systems in the world. Since 2019, the Mean Kilometres Between Failure (MKBF) of our MRT network has remained above the one million train-km target. LTA will continue to work closely with the tripartite partners to maintain the reliability of our rail system, and provide smooth and convenient rail journeys for our commuters.