SINGAPORE: The reliability of the MRT network, excluding the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL), reached a new record in August, according to the Land Transport Authority’s (LTA) monthly report published on Friday (Sep 11).

In August, the MRT network's mean kilometres between failures (MKBF) rose to 2.88 million train-km, up from 2.37 million train-km the preceding month. LTA publishes its reliability figures using a 12-month moving average of MKBF - a metric that measures train reliability and tracks the average distance that a train travels before it encounters a delay of more than five minutes.   

"This is the highest MKBF our MRT network has ever achieved," said the authority. According to LTA data, the previous high of 2,627,000 train-km was achieved in June 2024.

August was also the fifth consecutive month that the MRT network's MKBF has exceeded 2 million train-km.

The MRT network, excluding the TEL, also had no delays exceeding 30 minutes in August. This marked the tenth consecutive month without such a delay, the longest period since LTA began tracking the statistic in 2011.

On the MRT network's reliability, LTA said: "This was only possible because of our transport workers and rail operators.

"Our high MKBF levels over the last five months reflect their sustained effort and dedication to uplift reliability and improve their response to faults and incidents.

"It also reflects the impact of the recommendations made by the Rail Reliability Taskforce in Feb 2026, which LTA, SMRT and SBST have been following up on."

All five mature MRT lines either improved or maintained their MKBF figures in August from a month ago.

The Downtown Line almost doubled its MKBF, going from 4,200,000 train-km to 8,370,000 train-km.

The MKBF for the Circle Line improved from 2,450,000 train-km to 2,510,000 train-km, while the North East Line's MKBF edged up to 4,480,000 tr...