Successful first year for Singapore's automatic metro
line

NEL-Cial-Opening_1_l,0.jpg

SBS Transit celebrates a year of service on the North East
Line that exceeded expectations


Representatives of the company told the daily Straits Times
newspaper in Singapore that service on the North East Line (NEL)
– the world’s first fully automatic heavy-rail metro
– had exceeded expectations and converted many who had
doubted that the technology would live up to claims made for it.


The brand new system proved to be highly reliable. The Land
Transit Authority (LTA) of Singapore had set an initial target of
95 percent availability for the driverless system, and the LTA
plans to raise the target to 98 percent. But in the first year,
NEL beat both the established and the future target, with service
available 99.6 percent of the time.


Delays, on average, did not exceed two minutes over a
20-hour day of service – or, put another way, less than one
delay of more than 15 minutes every six weeks.


The operator has been welcomed close to 300 transport
officials and rail experts from around the world to demonstrate
how the new line works. Delegations from Canada, China, India,
Japan, the Netherlands and other countries have come to Singapore
to experience this innovative technology first-hand.


174,000 trips a day were made on the line in the first year
of operation.


The LTA awarded contracts to ALSTOM for the URBALIS 300
fully automatic train control system in 1997 and for the 25
six-car METROPOLIS trains in 1998.

With more than 35 product lines and a presence in more than
60 countries, ALSTOM's Transport sector offers complete products
and services for new rolling stock, signaling, and electrical and
mechanical infrastructure as well as maintenance and
rehabilitation services to four distinct types of customers:
urban transit authorities and operators; intercity passenger rail
operators and rolling stock owners; rail freight operators; and
intercity railway infrastructure owners. ALSTOM's Transport
sector, with sales of 4.9 billion euros in financial year
2003-2004, is among the world's leading suppliers to the railway
industry.


Press information:

Helen Connolly

Tel. +33 (0)1 41 66 91 43

helen.connolly@transport.alstom.com

• To visit the SBS Transit website