Sydney Metro first week: Transport Minister ‘impressed’ despite technical problems

The first week of the new $7.3b Metro service has been dogged by technical failures, but Transport Minister Andrew Constance says it is to be “expected” of a brand new system.

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Transport Minister Andrew Constance is “incredibly impressed” with the new $7.3 billion Metro Northwest service despite a horror first week for the service.

A string of falsely-activated fire alarms, driverless trains overshooting platforms and power and communication failures have seen lengthy delays for passengers since it opened just over a week ago.

The latest hiccup occurred this morning when a fire alarm went off at North Ryde station, triggering an evacuation and delays along the northwest line.

‘Minor glitches’: Transport Minister Andrew Constance says he has been “incredibly impressed” with the recovery of the Metro system after the run of technical failures.

It came a day after automatic doors failed to open on a train at Tallawong, and another fire alarm going off at Hills Showground station on Saturday, bringing a temporary halt to services.

The worst day of the opening week, however, came on Friday when a circuit breaker tripped at Bella Vista station, causing a Metro blackout and the closure of four stations leading into the morning peak-hour commute.

At 7.50am, a train also overshot the platform at Chatswood, causing an 11-minute delay in the service.

A fire alarm was then activated at 3pm, forcing Macquarie Park station to be evacuated and train services to skip the stop while the issue was dealt with.

A power failure at the Hills station forced passengers onto buses on Friday. Picture: David Swift

Despite all this, on top of first-day blues at Tallawong station and train communication failures on Wednesday, Transport Minister Andrew Constance said he was “extremely pleased with Metro’s performance over the past seven days”.

“I am listening to the community and they’re telling me they love Metro,” Mr Constance said.

“Let’s put it into perspective: there have been a handful of minor glitches on a system which has carried over 600,000 people on over 2000 services.

“The minor issues which have occurred are to be expected on a brand new system — and I’ve been incredibly impressed with the recovery of the system from these incidents.

Commuters wait for the Metro service at Epping station this morning after delays caused by a fire alarm at North Ryde.

“Metro is incredible and I’m going to challenge anyone who wants to run it down.”

There have been many passengers who have already taken up the Minister’s challenge, giving it the thumbs down after a promising first commuter day last Monday.

“The testers and developers should get fired #SydneyMetro,” Mas Kay wrote.

And Hayeshan Perera wrote during this morning’s delays: “I just saw 2 ‘Rail Replacement Standby Buses’ going past near Epping … and why do these fire alarms keep going off?”

In a somewhat alarming post last week, Stewart Wilson took a photo of a screw loose alongside a door on a Metro train.

“Is this screw important? #SydneyMetro” Mr Wilson wrote.

A passenger took this photo of a screw loose when the Metro service stopped along the northwest line last week. Photo: Twitter

A Sydney Metro spokesman backed up the Minister’s comments, saying: “As with any comparable railway of this scale around the world, there have been some settling-in issues.

“It is normal during the early stages of operations of a complex transport system such as Sydney Metro for technical and process issues that require resolution to be identified and fine-tuned.”

Opal data shows there have been more than 601,000 customers on the Metro over the first week, with Chatswood, Macquarie University and Epping were the busiest stations.

A packed Chatswood Metro station on Friday. Picture: Flavio Brancaleone

Opposition Transport spokeswoman Jodi McKay questioned whether the Coalition Government opened the new service before it was fully tested.

“The Coalition had to demonstrate it had finally delivered a major project after eight years in government, and this pressure could be behind why it was opened before further testing could have ironed out the issues we’re seeing now,” Ms McKay said.

Jodi McKay says the Metro teething problems could have been avoided with more pre-opening testing.

“People need to have confidence in the punctuality and reliability of this new service.”

Asked to give the service a rating out of 10, she said: “Five.

“People would like to have it at seven or eight, and it really comes down to reliability for customers.”

Rail, Tram and Bus Union NSW Secretary, Alex Claassens hit out at the Metro, describing it as “the debacle that rail workers predicted it would be”.

“In its first week, the Sydney Metro has failed to prove it is capable of doing the two basic tasks required of a driverless train — driving and stopping,” Mr Claassens said.

There were nearly 600,000 Metro passengers in the first week of the new $7.3b service.

“We’ve seen commuters forced onto replacement buses, people left stranded in between stations with no information, delays, and serious automatic door problems. And that’s after less than a week.

“We’re lucky we haven’t seen any major safety incidents as yet, but unfortunately the signs are very worrying.”