Singapore's Land Transport Authority said on Friday that it will call a tender 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. The new locations include from Pasir Ris MRT to Tampines MRT and Jurong East MRT to Bukit Batok MRT.
The authorities said in a press release that the on-site installation is expected to begin from mid-2018, following design and off-site fabrication works, and will be completed by 2020. The statement added that the noise barriers are expected to reduce railway noise levels by five to 10 decibels.
By the end of 2016, LTA had already completed installing about 8.5 km of railway noise barriers at 16 locations across the island under Phase 1. Installation works of another 3km of barriers, along nine other locations, are ongoing and expected to complete by 2018.
According to LTA, the noise barrier installation has to be restricted to after service hours to avoid inconvenience to commuters. It also has to be coordinated with other ongoing maintenance and improvement works during that time.
The authorities said those stretches along elevated railway tracks where noise levels exceed the National Environment Agency's recommended guideline of 67 decibels averaged over an hour should be prioritised.
The press release said the agency has also been working with train manufacturers and operators to mitigate railway noise in other ways. The work includes 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.
