Apologising once again for the inconvenience caused by the disruptions, Azharuddin promised to compensate passengers with free fare for “every day of disruption” as he said it was the “right thing to do”.
Noting that Prasarana’s engineers had been working to identify the root cause of disruptions to the Kelana Jaya LRT line since last Saturday, he revealed that the trains were “unable to move automatically” yesterday and that Rapid KL was unable to “see the trains on our screens”.
“And that’s very important… So we had to make the very tough call to suspend operations,” said Azharuddin at a press conference.
“We know that many are affected by this disruption, but our priority is safety. We certainly don’t want the unfortunate incident that happened in May 2021 to happen again.
“Whenever we run our operations, we have to be confident it’s safe. If we don’t meet the high standards we’ve set, we will not run the trains and will inform the public accordingly.”
A total of 213 passengers were injured when two LRT trains collided on May 24, 2021 on the underground tracks between KLCC and Kampung Baru stations, the worst incident involving the Kelana Jaya line since it started operations as the Putra line in 1996.
Of the 213 injured passengers, 64 had to be hospitalised – with six in critical condition and three requiring ventilators. The accident also left 15 people in semi-critical condition.
This week’s disruptions to the Kelana Jaya LRT line were caused by an automatic train control (ATC) system malfunction.
Azharuddin said experts from the Thales Group, the original equipment manufacturer, would join Rapid Rail’s engineering team to analyse the logs generated by the train’s test runs and identify the components suspected of causing problems to the ATC system.
Touching on the free fare for passengers affected by the disruptions, Azharuddin said details would be announced once service resumed at the 16 stations from Kelana Jaya to Ampang Park.
“We acknowledge the feedback from the public, including the feedback from social media,” he said. “I think this (free fare) is the right thing to do, and we will announce the details once we have rectified the problem.”
Thales experts on flight from Toronto
Meanwhile, in a statement to Bernama, Wee said two experts from the Thales Group were currently on a flight from Toronto, Canada, and would begin inspections immediately upon arrival.
“Earlier, Prasarana and Thales have been in close contact since Monday. The transport ministry will monitor developments closely and ensure the capability of trains to operate safely without compromise.
“Of course, we want the system to operate earlier than the seven-day suspension as announced. But what is most important is passenger safety which is always a priority,” he said.
Wee said he will hold a press conference tomorrow morning after returning to operation control centre (OCC) to be briefed on the latest development.
Earlier, Wee chaired a meeting with senior ministry officials, including secretary-general Isham Ishak; land division deputy secretary Wan Mohd Asraf Wan Salleh and Prasarana management, led by Azharuddin, and Rapid Rail CEO Amir Hamdan at his ministry.
Wee then went to the Kelana Jaya Route OCC to receive an initial briefing from Thales Group experts Hugos Ramos and Vincent Burdin, who arrived from Singapore yesterday.
“These two experts have together with OCC staff tested the affected system continuously and carried out train movement simulations at two-and-a-half-minute intervals and analysed data logs for the past few days,” he said.