SINGAPORE – Mr Muhammad Syahirul Annuar Musa, 28, grew up wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps and work in the rail sector.

His father, Mr Musa Bari, 52, a rail services manager in SMRT, has been working in the industry for about two decades now.

When he was 25, Mr Syahirul entered Republic Polytechnic (RP), majoring in rail operations management for his Diploma in Engineering Systems and Management.

Before that, he had been doing temporary administrative jobs for about two years.

On graduating last May in the first batch of graduates from his course, he found a job in SMRT as a train service controller.

He had done a five-month internship with SBS Transit in his final year, where he was posted to the Operations Control Centre of the Downtown Line.

There, he was exposed to a live system, and observed and regulated train movement.

He gained experience in handling situations such as signalling faults.

“A key challenge the people in there face is the need to have fast critical thinking and decision-making ability. Your actions affect members of the public, and one decision can go on to affect thousands of commuters.”

Mr Syahirul’s course aims to address the manpower needs of a growing rail industry in Singapore.

On Friday (Jan 11), RP signed a memorandum of understanding with the Land Transport Authority (LTA), SMRT and SBS Transit to commit to developing the local land transport industry workforce, and growing the pool of professionals as Singapore moves towards a car-lite future.

SMRT chief technology officer Gan Boon Jin said the collaboration will let students better understand the growing complexities in running the rail system, and “build engineering capabilities that will benefit the overall transport industry”.

Senior Minister of State for Transport and for Communications and Information Janil Puthucheary also officially opened the RP-LTA Rail Operations Management Lab.

The facility is modelled after an Operations Control Centre for urban rail lines, usually located within the train depot.

Mr Syahirul said the lab represented real-world setting and is good for students, because while some easily understand things through theory, others learn better through hands-on practice in a live environment.

Dr Janil said the facility would help adequately prepare more people to enter the rail sector here, which is a sunrise industry, with Singapore’s rail network growing from 230km today to 360km by 2030.

The total workforce in the rail industry is expected to grow from over 9,000 today to more than 15,000 by 2030. To suit the commuters’ evolving needs, rail professionals have to pick up new and varied skills, he added.

On Friday, Dr Janil also launched a new Cyber Threat Intelligence Centre, a tie-up between RP and cyber-security firms RSA and Ensign InfoSecurity, which will let students pursuing infocomm security management manage realistic cyber-threat scenarios as part of their training.

He also witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between RP and Ensign InfoSecurity.

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