MEASURES TO PREVENT AND MANAGE RISKS FROM CROWD SURGES DURING FESTIVE PERIODS AND PUBLIC EVENTS
The tragic incident at Itaewon, South Korea, leading to the deaths of 158 people arising from crowd crush led my parliamentary colleagues and I to ask the Government on its strategies to deal with similar situations in Singapore. I filed 3 PQs asking for details of the strategies to ensure that crowds are managed proactively at large scale events, there is sufficient mobile phone coverage and bandwidths are provided at large scale and MRT stations will not be overcrowded. I also made some suggestions on proactive management of large crowds. My PQs and the Ministers’ responses may be accessed below.
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Mr Murali Pillai asked the Minister for Home Affairs what strategies are put in place to proactively manage crowds at large scale public and private events and ensure that they do not develop into crowd pushing, crushing and collapses.
The Minister of State for Home Affairs (Ms Sun Xueling) (for the Minister for Home Affairs):
The Singapore Police Force (SPF) works with the relevant stakeholders to put in place measures to mitigate the risks associated with large crowds. Under the Public Order Act, event organisers, otherwise known as EOs, are required to notify the Police of public events expected to attract crowds of 5,000 persons or more, or private events expected to attract crowds of 10,000 persons or more. The Police will, then, engage these EOs on the appropriate measures to be deployed for public safety.
The Police also works closely with EOs and other stakeholders on crowd management plans for major events, such as the National Day Parade, Christmas festivities at Orchard Road, New Year countdowns and the Formula One Night Race. These plans may include measures, such as the monitoring of crowd size, the deployment of security personnel and the regulation of crowd flow at congregation areas and potential chokepoints. They may also include cordoning of areas with public safety risks, such as narrow pathways and bridges and signages to guide the public on diversions and closures of thoroughfares.
The Police are deployed on-the-ground at these major events to ensure law and order, as well as to provide swift responses to incidents. Contingency plans are also put in place. These may involve catering for emergency lanes to facilitate emergency responses within crowded areas and closing off high-risk areas pre-emptively before they become overcrowded.
As for indoor venues, occupant limits are regulated by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) under the Fire Code and Fire Safety Manager (FSM) Regulations. Under the Fire Code, functional spaces within a building are assigned an occupant load factor which determines the maximum number of people allowed at any point of time and there must also be sufficient egress capacity. In general, the Fire Code requires every storey of a building to have at least two independent exit staircases to ensure timely evacuation. Higher risk premises, such as those with an occupant load of 1,000 persons or more; floor area of 5,000 square metres (sqm) or more; or nine storeys or more, including basement levels, require an FSM to be appointed.
The Police conduct frequent patrols when there are large crowds at locations like Little India and Chinatown, and also deploy various sensors, such as CCTVs and drones to monitor the ground situation. They may be augmented by Auxiliary Police Officers. Members of the public may call 999 to alert the Police if there are safety concerns related to overcrowding.
If the Police assesses that there are disturbances to the mood of a crowd, the Police may seek to remove the source of the agitation. The Police may also provide adequate space for crowd dispersal or provide clear instructions on how the crowd may exit the congested area. To do so, the Police may use voice amplification devices, such as loudhailers, to gain the attention of the crowd.
To increase public awareness, the Police publicise safety measures pre-, during and post-event. The Police may also pre-empt the public on potential crowding and alert the public to avoid areas or events which are already crowded. For example, at National Day Parade 2022, the Crowd@MarinaBay website provided live updates of the crowd situation at hotspots for fireworks viewing in the Marina Bay area. Members of the public can help keep each other safe by informing one another of ground developments.
The Police regularly analyse major incidents, which occur around the world to improve their crowd management measures. They also regularly review their regulatory and policy levers, as well as operational plans. It is equally important that organisers and stakeholders act responsibly, including to adopt sufficient safety measures and to work with the authorities to keep events and the public safe.
Mr Murali Pillai (Bukit Batok): Thank you, Mr Speaker, Sir. I have two supplementary questions for the Minister of State. First, I wonder whether the Police is minded to develop bespoke regulations to deal with different types of crowds. For example, a crowd at a rock concert would behave differently from a crowd at a place of worship. And this is something that is found in scientific literature and the practical considerations are different. So, I wonder whether the Police could consider this suggestion.
Second, on the point about voice amplification made by the hon Minister of State, I wonder whether the Police is minded to leverage on technology. For example, issuing SMS text messages at a particular area so that all the people in the crowd would get the right message and act in accordance with the Police advice.
Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for his two suggestions. It always allows us to further think about how we can improve our processes. On the first point that he mentioned about bespoke regulations, I just wanted to add that when the Police assess an event or potential risk, it is not just about physical attributes such as the terrain or numbers of people. Indeed, we also do pay attention to the dynamics of the crowd — what kind of people are likely to attend, what kind of fervour or enthusiasm or emotions they will likely display. So, these are already taken into account. When the Police work with the EOs in the first instance to think about how to best manage the crowd.
On the second point, definitely, we are always on the lookout for better use of technology. We do have an SG Secure app. I would have to check internally whether or not we use it to send out SMS notifications, but that is one possibility. So, thank you very much.
MITIGATION STRATEGY TO DEAL WITH CELLULAR PHONE JAMS AT
LARGE-SCALE CROWD EVENTS
Mr Murali Pillai asked the Minister for Communications and Information what mitigation strategy is put in place to deal with cellular phone jams occurring at large-scale crowd events that have a potential to develop into public order situations.
Mrs Josephine Teo: For large-scale crowd events where mobile cellular network traffic in the vicinity could be higher than usual, the Infocomm Media Development Authority works with mobile network operators to implement measures to increase capacity. This is already the case for events such as the National Day Parade. Such measures range from optimising their networks that serve the event areas, to the deployment of additional network equipment. Mobile networks are closely monitored, and engineers will be on standby to address network issues. Voice calls are also prioritised over Internet access on mobile networks, to ensure callers are able to reach emergency services.
STRATEGIES IN PLACE TO PREVENT OVERCROWDING AND RISK OF
STAMPEDE IN MRT STATIONS
Mr Murali Pillai asked the Minister for Transport what strategies are put in place to prevent MRT stations from being overcrowded with commuters and to reduce the risk of crowd pushing, crushing and collapses from occurring.
Mr S Iswaran: Our rail operators and the Land Transport Authority have in place rail incident management plans which include station-specific crowd control procedures. MRT stations are manned by station staff and monitored by operation control centres on a 24/7 basis. Upon detecting potential build-up of crowds in any part of the station, station managers will trigger a series of crowd control measures to regulate the inflow and outflow of the station. If necessary, operators will contact the relevant Home Team agencies for assistance. Let me give you some examples.
For example, if a crowd is forming on the platform due to service delay, operators may increase train frequencies where possible to promptly clear the crowd. Meanwhile, operators may also take measures to slow down the crowd movement from the concourse to the platform, such as switching off the escalators or even holding back commuters at the concourse level until the crowd at the platform has eased. If necessary, operators will also temporarily divert commuters to other nearby MRT stations. Similar measures are used if there are large crowds trying to exit stations.
These crowd control procedures are part of operators’ rail incident management plans, which are regularly reviewed by Land Transport Authority (LTA) in consultation with the Singapore Police Force. There are also regular joint exercises to ensure that relevant personnel are familiar with the plans. In addition, for special events where larger crowds are expected — such as National Day Parade, Formula One races and New Year’s Eve countdowns — rail operators, LTA and the Singapore Police Force work closely with the event organisers to formulate crowd management contingency plans.
