What happened to LRT’s fail-safe, protective devices?

 

Former Prasarana chairman Tajuddin Abdul Rahman’s LRT crash press conference was revealing. He showed his lack of understanding of his role in the company, his lack of accountability and, most important, his lack of empathy and compassion for the victims of the crash.

Would he have been as dismissive and flippant if lives had been lost?

One hopes that his successor will not be a political appointee. They are the wrong type of people to run our GLCs.

Politicians are only concerned about the next vote. The more unscrupulous ones will ensure that their family and friends “win” closed tenders. We need people of integrity and who are not afraid of transparency in the way an organisation is run.

Interestingly, Ahmad Maslan, the BN secretary-general, expressed shock and surprise that Tajuddin had been sacked. He appears to have missed the point entirely.

Did he watch the PC? Tajuddin was evasive, insulting and made an excuse to justify his failure to visit the crash site immediately after the incident. He made jokes about a serious mishap. He could have caused a diplomatic rift with his response to a journalist from China.

Ahmad said he respected finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz’s decision to dismiss Tajuddin, and then added: “We as human beings are not perfect.”

How does being a perfect human being figure in the avoidance of duty and lack of responsibility? Tajuddin focused on himself in the PC. It was the “me” culture.

He could not visit the crash site because he had just finished a meeting. Besides, he had to prepare for his second vaccination shot the following morning. He should have thought about the crash victims, some of whom were seriously injured.

Both Tajuddin and Ahmad ignored the plight of the victims. Tajuddin announced that each of them would receive an immediate aid of RM1,000 but money is not a cure for everything.

Did he stop to think that a person might develop a phobia of entering and travelling on trains, or if a person is unable to work or study because of concentration issues? If a breadwinner had suffered life-changing injuries, how would the person provide for the family?

Ahmad “wanted to express his sympathy” and said he was sorry that Tajuddin had been sacked. Where is his sympathy for the victims? Are they collateral damage? Politicians tend to place more importance on their peers than the people they serve.

Transport minister Wee Ka Siong and Prasarana chief executive Norila Noah visited the crash site when they were informed that an incident had unfolded in the tunnel beneath KLCC.

Wee said that preliminary investigations by the Land Public Transport Agency showed that the driver of the empty train, TR40, had been negligent. According to him, the train should not have reversed because that placed it on a collision course with TR81, which had 213 passengers.

He also said the train failed to operate automatically as the Vehicle On-Board Controller (VOBC) had stopped functioning. This is a tell-tale sign that there was a serious fault. So why blame the driver of TR40?

Although Wee corrected himself later and said that his ministry would look at all potential sources of fault, the people would like to know what happened to the high-end technology with which these digital trains are equipped?

In other words, what happened to the fail-safe devices, the warning systems and the sensors at the control centre?

Each train has its own computer system and is connected to the main computer at the control centre. Screens display the train’s position. The network is divided into sections and a train is only allowed to enter a section if the computer calculates that it is safe. If the line ahead is occupied, the train will reduce its speed and will not be able to enter that section.

In Monday’s incident, there appears to have been a system failure of the highest order.

What happened to the technicians who were supposed to watch the screens at the control centre? Did they miss something or did the system suffer a major technical glitch? If the system had failed, the driver cannot be accused of being negligent and made the scapegoat for the crash. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.