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Editorial | Stop the blame game on MTR Corp’s woes
- The government, being the key shareholder of the rail giant, is ultimately accountable, too, for the many shortcomings we have seen in recent years
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There is more to an accident inquiry than just apportioning blame. Concluding a three-month investigation into a train crash during an overnight test of a new signalling system in March, the MTR Corporation laid the blame squarely on a contractor for the errors made in a software upgrade in 2017.
A government probe into the incident in turn criticised the train operator for being overreliant on the contractor. The findings came as no surprise amid a series of woes for the city’s rail operator in recent years. But whether they can address the inadequacies along the chain of supervision is another matter.
It was sheer luck that only one driver sustained minor injuries when two empty trains collided at the crossover junction near Central station during the drill.
But the severity of the incident was reflected in the subsequent disruption of services caused by the derailment and the indefinite suspension of the signalling tests.
According to the MTR Corp, contractor Alstom-Thales DUAT Joint Venture made three implementation errors when performing a software change, which it said had reflected the contractor’s inadequacies in upholding quality assurance, risk assessment and simulation.
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