Thomson Line to open from 2019 with 22 stations

SINGAPORE: Singapore's sixth rail network -- the Thomson Line (TSL) -- will open from 2019, instead of the indicative timeline of 2018 announced in the Land Transport Master Plan.

Minister for Transport Lui Tuck Yew, who gave an update on the Thomson Line on Wednesday, said the change in timeline is to accommodate some adjustments made to the original plan.

Under the final rail alignment plan of the Land Transport Authority (LTA), the TSL will be longer and have more stations.

It will be 30 kilometres long -- 3 kilometres longer than envisaged -- and have 22 stations, four more than originally planned.

One of them is Springleaf station, sited in Nee Soon Group Representation Constituency (GRC).

Ms Lee Bee Wah, an MP for the area, said: "(At) Springleaf, most of the residents there are living in private estates, landed properties as well as some condominiums. Currently, the nearest station is Khatib MRT and the complaint is that it is so near and yet so far, because there is no direct bus service. (With the TSL)...we don't need to have direct bus service, there will be a station there."

Another two stations are Woodlands North and Woodlands South in Sembawang GRC.

Ms Ellen Lee, an MP for the area, said: "It (TSL) will facilitate transfer, especially within the estate itself and it will solve the crunch that my residents feel whenever they take the MRT and when they take the buses."

TSL will run from Woodlands in the north to Marina Bay in the south and is expected to be built at an estimated cost of around S$18 billion.

It is expected to have a daily ridership of 400,000 commuters.

Six of the 22 stations will be interchanges, enabling commuters to reach their destinations in the shortest possible time.

For example, a resident of Sin Ming travelling to Republic Polytechnic in Woodlands will halve his or her commute time from 50 minutes to 25 minutes.

Another at Woodlands Regional Centre heading to Marina Barrage will take 55 minutes instead of 70.

With six interchange stations, the TSL will connect to all existing lines and the future Downtown Line (DTL).

"All in, about 160,000 households will be within 10- to 12-minute walk from one of these stations. So you will have an additional option. Instead of having to take a feeder bus or find a way to get to one of the stations on the North-South Line, these 160,000 households can choose to walk to one of the Thomson Line's stations as an alternative," said Mr Lui.

TSL will connect to the North-South Line at Woodlands and Orchard stations.

Caldecott Station will connect to the Circle Line.

Residents of the Bukit Timah stretch can change trains at the future DTL Stevens Station to connect to the TSL.

The Outram Park Station will connect the TSL to the East-West Line and North-East Line, while the Marina Bay Station will connect the TSL to the North-South Line and Circle Line.

TSL will open in three stages from the north to the south.

Phase One, which will have three stations from Woodlands North to Woodlands South, will open in 2019.

Phase Two will be ready in 2020, with stations from Springleaf to Caldecott.

The final stretch of 13 stations from Mount Pleasant to Gardens by the Bay will open in 2021.

When fully operational, an estimated 60,000 households will be within 400 metres of one of the TSL stations.

The line, which will be fully underground, will run on a four-car instead of a three-car system.

Mr Lui said this will give it additional capacity to cope with any increase in long-term demand.

He was speaking during a visit to Telok Ayer Station of Downtown Line One, which will open by the end of next year.

Mr Lui also said: "During the construction phase (of the TSL), there will inevitably be a certain amount of inconvenience, noise pollution. We will try our best to minimise this as much as possible. We will of course want to engage the residents, dialogue with them, find ways to meet as much as possible some of the points that they raise."

LTA, Singapore Land Authority (SLA) and the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) said in a joint statement that while all efforts have been made to minimise land acquisition, the government will acquire four full lots.

They include Pearls Centre in Eu Tong Sen Street, a post office along Upper Thomson Road and two landed properties along Stevens Road and Robin Close.

Pearls Centre will be affected by the construction of the TSL as a tunnel will run under part of the building.

To optimise land use around the future TSL station at Outram Park, Pearls Centre will be acquired and integrated with the adjoining state land for a high-density mixed-use development.

Five other part lots will also be acquired but will not affect the main building structure.

Affected parties will be compensated and the amount will run into a few hundred million dollars, said SLA. The money will come from the S$18b budget to built the line.

The SLA gazetted the land affected by acquisition on Wednesday.

Cost of COI hearings amount to $10 million

SINGAPORE - The total cost of the Committee of Inquiry (COI) hearings have amounted to nearly $10 million, the Lianhe Zaobao reported on Friday.

The COI was set up to investigate the disruption of MRT train services on December 15 and 17 last year, which affected more than 200,000 people.

Over the course of six weeks, between April 16 and May 25, the COI heard in court the evidence of 116 witnesses, including ground staff, experts and former SMRT chief executive Saw Phaik Hwa.

According to a spokesperson from the Land Transport Authority (LTA), the total cost of the hearings is close $10 million.

The cost will be split between SMRT and the LTA, with SMRT paying $5.9 million, and LTA bearing the rest of the cost of about $4 million.

LTA's $4 million will be included in its expenses incurred for the 2011 to 2012 fiscal year, said the spokesperson.

The total sum of $10 million will go towards payment of lawyer fees as well as consultation fees for the panel of experts.

But the spokesperson stressed the importance of the COI however, and the need to engage a team of highly-qualified experts as well as lawyers.

After an eight-week inquiry, the COI found, among other issues, that the incidents were preventable.

In addition to the cost of the COI, train operator SMRT will also have to pay a fine of $2 million for the breakdowns.

The $2 million will be donated to the Public Transport Fund to help needy families with transport fares.

SMRT's Q4 profit drops 59%

SINGAPORE - Singapore's main subway operator SMRT Corp Ltd reported on Monday a 59 percent drop in fiscal fourth-quarter net profit, hurt by higher operating expenses and impairment of goodwill on its bus operations.
 
The company earned S$13.9 million in the three months ended March, down from S$34 million a year earlier.

SMRT declared a reduced final dividend of 5.70 Singapore cents compared with 6.75 cents a year ago.

SMRT shares have fallen around 7 percent since it said last week it would spend S$900 million to overhaul the train system following numerous breakdowns in recent months. Part of the cost will be borne by the government's Land Transport Authority (LTA).

"We are still in discussion with LTA on cost-sharing arrangements," interim CEO Tan Ek Kia said in a statement.

Under Singapore's regulatory framework for public transport, LTA owns the assets but SMRT is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the train system.

Looking ahead, SMRT said it expects revenue to rise in the next 12 months due to the expected rise in train and bus ridership. But earnings will be hurt by higher repair and maintenance costs, as well as expenses on energy and staff.

Several analysts have downgraded the stock or cut their price targets on concerns such as higher operational costs, regulatory risks and uncertainty surrounding the appointment of a new chief executive.

Out of 17 analysts covering the stock, 10 have sell or strong sell ratings, four have hold recommendations, while the remaining three have buy or strong buy calls, according to Thomson Reuters data.

SMRT shares fell 0.3 percent to close at S$1.68 on Monday.

S'pore to reduce growth of vehicle population over next 3 years

Singapore's yearly vehicle population growth rate will be lowered incrementally over the next three years, starting with the current 1.5 per cent reduced to 1 per cent in 2012.

This will be further reduced to 0.5 per cent in 2013 and 2014, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said on Friday.

For 2012, the 1 per cent growth will be front-loaded, meaning a 1.5 per cent annual growth rate will be kept from Feb 2012 to July 2012, followed by 0.5 per cent from Aug 2012 to Jan 2013, the second half of the quota year.


LTA said the current increase of 1.5 per cent in the vehicle numbers has outstripped the average annual road growth of about 1 per cent in recent years.
The transport body expects road growth to further slow down to about 0.5 per cent a year on average over the next decade.

"The lower vehicle growth rate is not expected to have a large impact on the COE supply in the next few years, especially in the context of an expected uptrend in vehicle de-registration numbers," it said.
The annual vehicle population growth rate will be reviewed after three years.

SBS Transit appointed Downtown Line operator

SINGAPORE: SBS Transit Limited has been appointed the new operator for Downtown Line, Singapore's fifth Mass Rapid Transit line.

When completed by 2017, the Downtown Line's 34 stations are expected to serve about half a million commuters daily.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) says the Downtown Line is the first rail line put up for competitive tender under the new rail financing framework LTA adopted in 2010.

Among other things, the licence period for the appointed operator is shorter - about 15 years, down from the existing 30 to 40 years.

And the LTA will own the rail operating assets and be responsible for timely replacements and enhancements.

In the case of the Downtown Line, the licence period is about 15 years from full completion in 2017, a few years after Downtown Line Stage One's targeted opening in 2013.

The LTA says the shorter duration will encourage efficiency through competition, as other operators may bid at the end of the licence term.

The appointed Downtown Line operator, SBS Transit Limited, will pay an annual licence charge over a 19-year licence period.

This payment is expected to reach an estimated total of S$1.6 billion at the end of the 19 years.

The payment will be placed in a Railway Sinking Fund to be managed by LTA to meet future expenditures on operating assets.

The LTA says the two local public transport operators, SBS Transit Limited and SMRT Trains Limited, both submitted competitive proposals to operate the Downtown Line.

It says SBS Transit Limited was picked after careful consideration.

SBS Transit is about 75 percent-owned by Singapore's biggest bus and taxi operator, ComfortDelGro.

The Downtown Line project was announced in 2005. It was later described as a major challenge.

LTA's project engineer, Darren Lau, had said: "The Downtown Line is currently one of the most challenging rail projects in Singapore, as it passes through varied soil conditions along the stretch. In certain areas like Bukit Timah, we even had to resort to using explosives to break up the granite rocks."

The Downtown Line was initially a five-station extension to the Circle Line. Known as Downtown Extension - running between Millenia Station and ending at Chinatown Station on the North East Line - it was expected to cost some S$1.4 billion and be completed by 2012.

But in 2007, the government approved S$12 billion worth of plans to add more than 40 kilometres to the existing mass rapid system.

The aim is to raise the number of those commuting by public transport to 70 per cent by 2020.

The Downtown Line will now have 34 stations in all - constructed over three phases.

Stage One involved the stations of the original Downtown Extension, running 4.3 kilometres from Chinatown to Bugis.

Work on Stage Two started in 2009, covering 12 underground stations over 16.6 kilometres.

When completed in 2015, Downtown Line 2 will run from Bukit Panjang, along the Bukit Timah Corridor and terminate at Rochor Station, where passengers can connect at Bugis.

The final 21-kilometre stretch of Downtown Line 3 will link the Singapore EXPO Convention and Exhibition Centre in the east to Bukit Panjang, with a loop through Marina Bay.




Personal View: This will more or less cause a upswing for the stock ComfortDelGro, do keep a lookout for it.