SMRT and LTA come together on data-driven maintenance

SMRT Corporation and the Land Transport Authority have launched a new Maintenance Engineering Centre (MEC) that uses data analytics to coordinate and manage maintenance across all SMRT lines.

The public transport operator said in a LinkedIn post that the MEC had “evolved from our Integrated Maintenance and Diagnostic Centre (IMDC)” project.

The Land Transport Authority unveiled plans for the IMDC back in late 2017 and said it would trial the concept the following year.

It was envisaged as a “hub of maintenance works and diagnostics”.

“Data is collected by monitoring systems and then consolidated in the IMDC into meaningful information where engineers can decide on the most appropriate actions expediently to enhance work processes,” the authority said at the time.

“This improves reliability as the maintenance process takes place simultaneously to revenue service.”

The MEC has similar goals, with SMRT Corporation describing it as a coordination and management point for “data-driven maintenance across all our MRT lines”.

SMRT Trains President Sheau Kai Lam wrote in a separate LinkedIn post that “the idea [for the MEC] was mooted by Yee Boon Cheow when he was our Chief Maintenance Officer for two years.”

“This joint LTA-SMRT idea of MEC is now operationalised to better direct maintenance controls, deploy condition-monitoring solutions and further develop our data analytics capabilities,” he wrote.

The new centre was launched by Minister S Iswaran on April 28.

The Minister wrote in a Facebook post that the MEC is based “at SMRT’s Kim Chuan Depot … the world’s largest underground depot.”

iTnews Asia sought additional information about the step-change in operational capability between the IMDC and MEC, as well as on the size of the MEC.

An SMRT Corporation spokesperson was unable to provide a comment. 

SMRT is known to use condition-based monitoring devices and data analytics to predict maintenance requirements for its signalling systems; it's not clear if this work comes under the MEC's remit, or is run separately.