The TEL4 (p)review
For once, a TEL stage opened without much drama.
I may be a doomer most of the time, but this blog celebrates deserving victories. We wouldn’t be here without the hard work of the engineers at the LTA, SMRT, Alstom, amongst other contractors, in gaining experience over the past three stages; to get to TEL4 without any particularly large hiccups is an achievement in itself.
As the second last part of 2001’s Eastern Region Line, TEL4 brings MRT service to an area that has had to accept bus dependency for far too long. Residents of Marine Parade and Siglap, with travel times disproportionately long by public transport, may have chosen to drive — some might argue that more affluent landed/condo residents are already more inclined to. Now, there are lesser reasons, especially for the professionals who work at MBFC, meet clients at Raffles Place, and thus need to travel between these two places and home on the East Coast.
Greater than the sum
Fortunately, it appears that progress has been made in noise mitigation along the rest of the line. This is half the battle won, and kudos to the team for the good work; but we’ll have to see if the fix is sustainable — whether it delivers the desired improvements while reducing side effects. From my personal observations, the long tunnel from Woodlands South to Springleaf has been sped up back to TEL2 speeds, without the noise issues that made them slow it down in the first place. Other slow zones such as Stevens to Napier, and Orchard to Great World, also need to be addressed.
Once this is done, the other half of the battle will be tightening the timetable. Excessively long waiting times at stations aren’t just bad for customer perception (people like to be kept moving), but are also bad for the pocketbook, as round trip times increase and more trains are needed to maintain defined service levels. The LTA promises a three-minute peak service, and this means more than double the trains are required now.
Thankfully, it appears effort has been made to speed up TEL1–3. After the TEL4 schedule revision, it will take ~46 minutes to reach Gardens by the Bay from Woodlands North instead of 49 minutes previously. The 8 stations on the 10.8km from Gardens by the Bay to Bayshore takes 17–18 minutes too, a full trip taking 64 minutes. On the other hand, the 11km from Bukit Panjang to Stevens (9 stations) takes 17 minutes.
Of course, TEL4 is not as straight as DTL2 — there are considerable curves around several stations, like Tanjong Rhu and Tanjong Katong. Sections that should be quite straight and fast, like Marine Terrace to Siglap, have also seen significant speed restrictions, a perplexing decision. Travel time targets within TEL4 were barely met during the preview, and it remains to be seen whether full service to Bayshore will be able to do so — or better yet, whether engineering reasons, if any, behind those restrictions can be resolved and the area sped up.
Train usage, though, is still very comfortable — according to SGTrains Spotters, almost the full fleet of 91 trains has been seen in service; and ~44 trains needed for the daily operation is slightly under half that. A faster timetable allows them to deploy one or two less trains while maintaining service levels, and may perhaps attract more people to use the Thomson side of the line, as waiting and travel times go down and the speed benefits over the NSL become more apparent.
Are they on board?
Of course, TEL4 also introduces new features, one notable feature being what is called “hybrid cooling” — in short, using fans and the air-conditioning at the same time. There is a case to do more to reduce the energy consumption of ventilation systems, as ventilation is the largest user of power in underground MRT stations, and our habits of using more air conditioning also poses harm towards the environment — even if we’re not as bad as Hong Kong in that department.
This is not a new concept. UC Berkeley, working with local partners, found that implementing hybrid cooling in an office managed to reduce energy consumption by 32%. They increased air-conditioning set temperatures, but offset that by using fans in the office to keep human-perceived temperatures low.
The LTA has done the same, installing fans in underground MRT stations; in order to achieve energy savings of ~15%. This likely builds on the success of ventilation fans in elevated MRT stations; in fact I daresay wide open spaces in new underground stations means it might actually be crazy enough to work. Of course, underground MRT stations don’t have windows through which sunlight can stream in, and without windows for natural ventilation, forced ventilation is still necessary, limiting its usefulness.
But to truly take advantage of this, it requires SMRT to also play its part, since obviously it falls to SMRT staff to configure a higher air conditioning setting during daily operations and to switch on the fans. SBS Transit uses 26.5 deg C as its air conditioning setting in DTL stations; this means that on cold, rainy December days, the outside can be even cooler than inside the station — and at less busy DTL stations like Hillview, it shows.
Only time will tell if SMRT is able to use this as designed; or like flip seats, will it just fall to the wayside without SMRT being able to benefit from the energy and cost savings. But should this work, I can’t help but think that the LTA should consider retrofitting such features into existing underground stations too— starting with wide open DTL stations. Perhaps SBS Transit may even appreciate being able to get away with increasing their air-conditioning temperature past 27 deg C.
And this also builds on SMRT’s own efforts to reduce air-conditioning power consumption in their stations. After all, the government is giving out climate vouchers to citizens to get them to install greener appliances, and it can do the same with public transport.
Does it work? During the Open House, it seemed so to me, with the fans producing quite a cooling effect despite the amount of people present. However, this effect is quite localised, perhaps due to the fans in some parts of some stations being no larger than a household ceiling fan, and that may result in questions being asked about how useful they actually are.
My final judgement is that this is crazy enough to work, mostly, especially in the crowded preview with 380,000 people supposedly having dropped by. But perhaps this might be better extended even outside platform areas, to include spaces like underpasses.
The holes in the system
Now, of course, not all is to be applauded.
Considering the width of Fort Road, it does raise the question of why an additional exit was not built to Katong Park station from the southbound side of Fort Road. There’s more than enough space on the reinstated road verge, and this would facilitate bus connections to the future Marina East area; buses going straight instead of entering the ECP. Of course, there are things we may not be able to see, like where utility lines are located.
Thankfully, this is the only case along the whole TEL4, with other stations providing plenty of exits. However, it would appear that the roadside grass verge is clearly big enough, at least for a lift-and-stairs exit like Great World exit 5 or Orchard exit 10. There would also be minimal additional excavation, compared to Great World, as the underpass already has to cross Fort Road anyway to reach exit 2 on the far side.
Of course, this could be built later. Great World station opened with only two of its six exits, exits 2 and 5 opening a few months later due to local complications. And work on exit 3 only started some time in 2022/23 closer to the opening of the MRT line, so I suppose they could always change their mind at Katong Park.
When this kind of thing happens, it’s understandable why you might see people insisting that the MRT is difficult to use and they’ll stick to building their lives around the buses instead. But it appears the LTA might know this, since Tanjong Katong station doesn’t have this issue; exit 2, despite also being in a space-constrained area and lacking escalators, provides a connection to the northbound bus stop instead of making people use exit 1 and crossing Amber Road. But it’s probably worth looking into, especially when the LTA might also want to add exits to other older MRT stations.
Likewise, some may want to take issue with longer walking distances at Siglap and Marine Terrace, especially to more distant underpass exits. Perhaps reversible travellators can be introduced here. And the commercial space at Marine Parade, being regarded operationally separate from the station, might also be better off with non-contiguous exit numbering from the station itself, as Taipei’s underground commercial spaces do.
While it’s all fresh
As part of final preparations for TEL4, the 3 minute peak hour service that was promised has been implemented ahead of schedule — at least in the week of 10th June; possibly even earlier. It’s a brief taster, but I like this future.
Only time will tell if the East Coast requires this much service. But it tickles me to see that the LTA doesn’t have a concept of a middle ground, going from barely enough at 5 minutes to so much at 3 minutes. Then again, the best advertising is service. The TEL being 8 minutes faster between Woodlands and Orchard may be marginal when you wait 5 minutes for a train, but not so much when you wait 3 minutes; faster trains being the icing on the cake.
But as said, SMRT’s move towards expanding automation and optimizing service delivery means that expanding service is cheap. It’s kind of hilarious to see the TEL operating 3 minute frequencies on weekend evenings as well, when most other lines are running only a 4 minute service. Maybe, though, this could be the start of a multiplier effect, as more people can be attracted to use the TEL instead, and then connecting rail lines also see service increases.
Or maybe the conversation will still have to revolve around how we fill those trains. Ultimately, car-centric Singapore means expansion of the rail network may be perceived as only providing marginal improvement, if any at all, unlike our regional neighbours where traffic can be so bad any rail option is welcomed. Then again, yesterday (21st June) evening, an accident on the ECP resulted in jams all the way from Still Road to the KPE — with TEL4 providing an alternative, it’s a reminder of the benefits new rail brings.
Thankfully, it appears the LTA has managed to learn from its past mistakes. It has been busy ramping up an especially aggressive marketing campaign— learning from the TEL2 “Virtual Open House” to flood their social media feeds with TEL4-related content, while also engaging influencers and loads of in-person advertising for the line. Not my cup of tea, but they need to target the everyman and compete for mindshare.
Will this work? We’ll find out soon enough. But if the preview turnout is any indication, the LTA’s attempt to build hype has seen payoffs.
Like what you read? Join the Telegram Channel for updates, or follow on Instagram for quick takes!
