A faulty platform screen door at Sixth Avenue Station along the Downtown Line (DTL) was caused by a bolt which had loosened over time, said the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and SBS Transit (SBST) in a joint press release yesterday.

The bolt on the fastener which secures the affected platform screen door to the guide rail had loosened over time, causing the door to be misaligned and come into contact with the side of an approaching train.

The dislodged screen door disrupted train services for two hours on the morning of Oct 4.

The platform screen doors at Sixth Avenue station were last checked by SBST in August as part of its routine maintenance, and none was faulty, according to the press release.

Following the Oct 4 incident, however, all DTL platform screen doors, including bolts and securing mechanisms, were extensively inspected and found to be functioning normally.

Platform screen doors on the other rail lines were also inspected, and found to be secure and in good working condition.

LTA and SBST have worked with the original equipment contractors to enhance the design of the platform screen door fasteners at all DTL stations.

A self-locking nut and a retaining pin will be added as additional measures to better secure the fastener to the guiding rail. The enhancement works to the doors are expected to be completed in the next two weeks.

All platform screen doors for the upcoming DTL3 will also use this enhanced fastener design.

The press release also said that more specific checks on all DTL platform screen doors will be done as part of routine maintenance.

wderek@sph.com.sg

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Town councils may soon be required to notify residents and the Ministry of National Development (MND) of key appointments like its chairman or general manager.

They would also have to set up a dedicated fund to replace lifts, and not take part in financial activities that detract from their core function of managing public housing estates, like operating its own commercial fairs.

These are among 12 amendments to the Town Councils Act, which is expected to be updated by the end of the year and for which the MND is seeking public feedback.

The wide-ranging changes clarify the roles of town councils and are expected to improve governance and strengthen how they manage finances, as well as give the ministry more regulatory oversight.

The long-awaited review was first mooted in May 2013.

It was raised again last February after a debate on the Auditor-General’s special report flagged major problems in the Workers’ Party’s town council’s finances.

After the Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) reported a sharp rise in arrears in April 2013, it stopped submitting its monthly arrears reports for almost two years.

Currently, MND has no power to compel town councils to give information on its finances and there are no penalties if a town council refuses to do so.

But if the proposals are accepted, town councils must submit their audited financial statements to MND within six months after the close of the financial year, or risk being penalised.

Members of the public can give their feedback on the changes till Nov 17, the MND said in a statement yesterday.

MND added that the proposed amendments “seek to ensure that TCs deliver essential public services in a consistent, fair and sustainable way that serves the interest of residents, while retaining the autonomous nature of TCs”.

rachelay@sph.com.sg

For details of the proposed amendments, visit www.reach.gov.sg

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Your future home might be planned using virtual reality, built with a 3D printer and inspected by a robot for quality.

What may sound like a sci-fi movie could become reality in a few decades as Singapore ramps up its construction productivity and employs more efficient building methods.

Construction site productivity has grown by an average rate of 1.3 per cent per year since 2009 but there is still room for improvement, said National Development Minister Lawrence Wong yesterday at the launch of the Singapore Construction Productivity Week at the Singapore Expo.

As such, the Government is adopting a string of measures to raise productivity growth to the national target of 3 per cent per year.

This comes amid a need to overcome manpower constraints as Singapore continues to develop and take on more construction projects, such as the upcoming Jurong Lake District and waterfront city at Tanjong Pagar, Mr Wong said.

The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) has come up with a new road map that will see the industry develop, adapt and adopt technologies in areas such as robotics, 3D printing and prefabrication in factories.

Such methods, some of which are already in practice here, are expected to speed up the building process, rely on fewer workers and boost construction quality.

About 400 industry players, public agencies, institutes of higher learning and research institutions were consulted for this road map.

“BCA will now study how we can support these different research priorities and give them a greater push,” said Mr Wong.

BCA chief executive John Keung said the first step is to look for funding for such technologies, which are typically more expensive. But he is not too worried about cost.

Said Dr Keung: “Once the industry is familiar with (such technologies), there will be economies of scale… and the cost will come down.”

Some of these technologies were on show yesterday at the event’s BuildTech Asia exhibition, organised by Sphere Exhibits and hosted by BCA.

Nanyang Technological University’s Singapore Centre for 3D Printing, for instance, showcased a 3D printer that can produce concrete structures.

The Government will also look at stipulating productivity outcomes, such as manpower savings, for future Government Land Sales (GLS) sites, but without mandating any specific technology.

Currently, the use of specific technologies, such as prefabricated pre-finished volumetric construction, has been mandated for selected GLS sites.

But the new requirement will allow “more innovation and scope” for firms bidding for the sites to come up with their own productive methods, said Dr Keung.

yeosamjo@sph.com.sg

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A SELF-DRIVING car and a lorry collided yesterday morning, in what is believed to be the first accident in Singapore involving an autonomous vehicle.

No one was injured when the car knocked into a lorry while changing lanes at Biopolis Drive in one-north around 9.30am.

The car belonged to nuTonomy, a start-up software company which was conducting trials of its self-driving vehicles in the one-north business district.

The self-driving car, which was on a test drive, had two engineers on board and one of them was behind the wheel as a safety driver, nuTonomy said. It added that it is still investigating if the safety driver took over control of the car at the time of the crash.

Asked how fast the car was going, nuTonomy would say only that the vehicle was travelling at a “low speed” when the accident happened.

The Land Transport Authority, the police and nuTonomy are investigating the cause of the accident.

A photo of the incident was uploaded onto Facebook page Singapore Taxi Driver by Michael Chong Kwan Chew. He wrote that the right bumper of the car was damaged while the lorry had a dent on its side.

It led members of the Facebook group to raise questions about the safety of such cars and who should be liable.

Autonomous vehicles have been gaining traction in Singapore.

On Monday, the National Environment Agency and Ministry of Transport had issued a request for information for the design and development of vehicles that can autonomously clean pavements and roads, as well as collect and dispose of stored litter.

In August, nuTonomy launched what was touted as the world’s first trial of self-driving taxis on public roads in one-north.

Despite recent accidents involving driverless cars in the United States, the two firms developing driverless cars here – nuTonomy and Britain-based Delphi Automotive Systems – had said the cars are generally safe to use.

They have outfitted their vehicles with a range of devices, such as cameras and sensors, that give them a far wider range of vision than the average motorist.

Park Byung Joon, an SIM University senior lecturer in urban transport management, noted that the accident did not come as a big surprise.

“Humans don’t always behave the way they should on the roads. And technology is not advanced enough to pre-empt how humans would behave,” he said.

mellinjm@sph.com.sg

Additional reporting by Lee Min Kok

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