1. Following the announcement made during SMRT Contractors’ Safety Forum 2023 to introduce more stringent safety requirements to its procurement tenders, the public transport operator has launched the inaugural SMRT Contractors Safety Awards this year.

2. Mr Ngien Hoon Ping, Group Chief Executive Officer of SMRT said, “Safety is SMRT’s top priority. The awards are part of our broader efforts to strengthen the safety mindset among external stakeholders, including contractors and vendors, to foster a safer workplace for all. SMRT aspires to be the "Safety Queen Bee" of Singapore's Land Transport sector. We aim to achieve Vision Zero Accidents through continuous improvement and the sharing of best practices across the wider public transport community.”

3. With the tightening of requirements in SMRT’s tender evaluation criteria last year, it has also successfully reinforced the importance of safety among its vendors, with 90 per cent of them now holding bizSAFE Level 3 or higher certification from the Workplace Safety and Health Council (WSH), as compared to 75 per cent a year ago. bizSAFE Level 3 recognises that a company has conducted risk assessments for every work activity and process in their workplace, in compliance with the requirements in the WSH (Risk Management) Regulations.

4. SMRT presented the award to ten of its value chain partners, such as contractors and vendors, who had fulfilled stringent safety standards, which include maintaining a track record of zero workplace injuries across all worksites in the past year, among other consideration factors. On top of receiving the award, the ten recipients (refer to the full list in Annex A) will also be endorsed as “SMRT Safety Trusted Partners” to the company’s extensive network of 800 tenants across train stations and bus interchanges.

5. This year’s annual forum, themed “Partnership towards Vision Zero Accidents”, brought together over 200 attendees from 90 contractor companies and external agencies, demonstrating their commitment to the shared goal of zero accidents. Mr Chee Hong Tat, Minister for Transport, graced the event as the Guest-of-Honour and presented the awards to the recipients.

6. At last year’s forum, SMRT also introduced the SMRT-Contractor Safety Community of Practice (COP), a series of regular engagements with contractors on risk and safety issues. Over the past year, SMRT conducted ten dialogue sessions with the contractor partners, focusing on safety case studies and standards for high-risk activities such as track access and working at heights. As a follow-through from the engagements, SMRT announced a ‘Kaizen for Safety’ course, a one-day programme designed to equip contractor partners with Kaizen fundamentals and know-how to spearhead safety enhancement initiatives.

7. All contractors are also encouraged to adopt Safety Culture 3.0, a company-wide initiative launched in March 2024. The initiative anchors on the "second-last-man" concept, where staff who are directly involved in the work processes ensure the safety of their colleagues, based on the Swiss Cheese Methodology for comprehensive incident prevention.

8. The public transport operator also introduced an Operations and Maintenance Audit Guidebook to aid SMRT staff and partners in conducting safety audit checks. This guidebook enables proactive identification of potential risks and decisive actions to mitigate safety hazards.

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