To reduce the impact of railway noise near residential areas, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Singapore has decided to install an additional 10 km of railway noise barriers at 20 new locations on the elevated MRT tracks along the North-South and East-West Lines. These locations include from Pasir Ris MRT to Tampines MRT and Jurong East MRT to Bukit Batok MRT.
Making this announcement through a press release, LTA said, “When completed, the noise barriers are expected to reduce railway noise levels by 5 to 10 decibels so residents living near these MRT tracks can look forward to an improved living environment.”
It added, “The work of on-site installation is expected to begin from mid-2018, following design and off-site fabrication works, and will be completed by 2020.”
LTA has already completed installing about 8.5 km of railway noise barriers at 16 locations across the island under Phase 1 in end-2016. Installation works of another 3km of barriers, along nine other locations, are ongoing and expected to complete by 2018.
LTA said, “To minimise inconvenience to commuters, the noise barrier installation has to be restricted to after service hours and coordinated with other ongoing maintenance and improvement works during that time.”
The installation of the railway noise barriers is a complex process which involves extensive retrofitting of existing railway structures. LTA has also been working with train manufacturers and operators to mitigate railway noise in other ways. These include fitting trains with noise-dampening wheels, using ballast and concrete sleepers on the tracks enabling better absorption of noise, and servicing the train wheels and tracks more frequently.
