How commuters coped on second day of disruption

They face confusion, longer travel time and bus queues, but some praise the helpful staff

- Fatimah Mujibah, Vanessa Paige Chelvan and Fatmah Khan

Commuters using the East-West Line (EWL) faced a second day of disruption, with train services still unavailable between Jurong East and Buona Vista MRT stations on Sept 26 after a power fault that happened the day before.

An estimated 516,000 commuters were affected. Many had to take free bridging buses between the four-station stretch to continue their journeys, with 80 doubledecker buses deployed to ferry commuters in both directions.

There was some confusion on the ground during the morning and evening peak periods, with commuters unsure about where to take the bridging buses or how to navigate the train shuttle services between Boon Lay and Jurong East, as well as between Buona Vista and Queenstown.

About 620 police officers and ground staff from the Land Transport Authority, SMRT, SBS Transit and Tower Transit helped manage the crowds at the stations.

In the morning, both commuters and station staff had another problem to deal with a heavy downpour that began at about 8am.

Many station staff were seen going out of their way to prevent commuters from getting drenched by signalling buses to park nearer to bus stops and assisting the wheelchairbound.

The downpour ended at about llam.

Travelling time for some was extended significantly. For instance, journalists from The Straits Times.

took about 90 minutes to travel from Jurong East to Redhill, using a combination of shuttle bus, shuttle train and regular train service. This route would typically have taken 21 minutes, according to a Google Maps estimate.

Some commuters had factored the delays into their planning.

One commuter, who wanted to be known only as Ms Wong, said that she was headed to Jurong East MRT station, where a company bus would pick her up at 6.55am.