Reader Response Draft 1

In The Straits Time article, "Dubbed 'the best in class': 6 things about Hong Kong's MTR railway system", Khaw (as quoted in Lee, 2015) was full of commendations on Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway (MTR) and approved that the standards of MTR should be classified as the basic criterion for other countries. There were certain facts about MTR mentioned in the article. Hong Kong's railway pricing is the highest globally and the track of MTR covers a long distance of 221km. In terms of fault occurrence, the MTR encounters a significantly small number of minor delays. Furthermore, 37 per cent of MTRC's earnings were devoted to the rail maintenance. In addition, MTRC is well known for its highly efficient manpower and crowd control measures such as driving a vehicle equipped with ultrasonic techniques to perform routine checks on the long track every couple of days for flaws that are not detectable with human eyes. While many countries have certain areas of aspect to learn from Hong Kong's MTR, it should not be designated as the best in class.

First of all, Hong Kong MTR has very poor management on the passengers. In the article "10 strangest things to happen on Hong Kong's MTR", Blundy (2016) stated that a passenger was seen making a anchorage on a train to take a nap. Fortunately, MTR staff were called upon to stop the man for posting disturbance to the train. Although the train system is well known for its efficiency as mentioned in the article "Dubbed the 'best in class', 6 things to know about Hong Kong MTR rail system", such example has proved the poor management side of it. Despite not being as efficient as MTR, Singapore's SMRT has better management on its travelers. At the very least, there were no cases of passengers hanging a hammock in the train. Secondly, the management of MTR needs to implement stricter rules for the passengers to prevent serious collision and crowding in the station. During peak hours, passengers tend to rush in and out of the train doors for work. Passengers who alight on the specific stations should have the priority to get out of the train first before the ones that want to board on the train. There are times people will force their way in before the alighting passengers because they wish to take up empty seats which result in crowding on the door and unnecessary collisions among each other. With proper management crews to control the situation, they can create an open path so that the passengers can alight without anybody in the way and let the boarding passengers enter in a much orderly manner. This can be further supported in the article "13 bad habits people do at the MTR"(n.d.).

Lastly,  it was said in a recent article "MTR slammed for poor handling of train service failure" that approximately 100,000 city workers were stranded in the East Kowloon region due to a power glitch in the train service. Hong Kong's MTR has ultrasonic techniques that are used to detect faults in the railway system. However, the workers decided to look for the reason behind the glitch with naked eyes and it was outrageous that they took more than an hour finding it. They should have ratified more technologies so that when problems occur they can resolve it in a significantly shorter time. Khaw (2015) commented that trains of MTR reach stations every two minutes. Given that the same incident happens again, we can hardly imagine how many trains are being delayed in an hour's time. For an efficient rail system like MTR, it is understandable that the passenger's fares are increasing so that it can earn more revenue. In return, the MTR has to improve on its system as well to meet the satisfaction of the passengers. That is why when problem occurs and MTR takes a long time to resolve it, the dissatisfaction grows as they feel that the rail system has not made much preventive measures or solutions to uphold their reputation as a fast and efficient system.

Although MTR has been reputed as one of the best rail way systems in the world, it should not be designated as the best instead. Being the best is not just about being efficient in normal situations but also being decisive in critical situations. It should improve on its current standard in management of passengers and problem situations to convince the world that it can be the best.




References

Dubbed 'the best in class', 6 things to know about Hong Kong's MTR. (2015). The Straits Times. Retrieved, September 15, 2017 from http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/dubbed-the-best-in-class-6-things-about-hong-kongs-mtr-rail-system#xtor=CS1-10

10 strangest things to happen on Hong Kong's MTR. (2016). South China Morning Post. Retrieved, September 22, 2017 from http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1936345/10-strangest-things-happen-hong-kongs-mtr

13 bad habits people do at the MTR. (n.d.). Retrieved, September 23, 2017 from https://expats.hk/273-14-bad-habits-people-do-at-the-mtr.html

MTR slammed for poor handling of train service failure. (2017). Ejinsight. Retrieved, September 23, 2017 from http://www.ejinsight.com/20170412-mtr-slammed-for-poor-handling-of-train-service-failure/

Edited 28 September 2017

Summary - Draft 1

In The Straits Time article, "Dubbed 'the best in class': 6 things about Hong Kong's MTR railway system", Khaw (as quoted in Lee, 2015) was full of commendations on Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway (MTR) and approved that the standards of MTR should be classified as the basic criterion for other countries. There were certain facts about MTR mentioned in the article. Hong Kong's railway pricing is the highest globally and the track of MTR covers a long distance of 221km. In terms of fault occurrence, the MTR encounters a significantly small number of minor delays. Furthermore, 37 per cent of MTRC's earnings were devoted to the rail maintenance. In addition, MTRC is well known for its highly efficient manpower and crowd control measures such as driving a vehicle equipped with ultrasonic techniques to perform routine checks on the long track every couple of days for flaws that are not detectable with human eyes. While many countries have certain areas of aspect to learn from Hong Kong's MTR, it should not be designated as the best in class.

Summary on "Best in Class"

In the Straits Time article, "Dubbed 'the best in class': 6 things about Hong Kong's MTR rail system", Khaw (as quoted in Lee,2015) was full of commendations on Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway (MTR) and the standards of MTR should be classified as the basic criterion for other countries. There were certain facts about MTR mentioned in the article. Firstly, Hong Kong's railway pricing is the highest globally and the track of MTR covers a significantly longer distance of 221km while SMRT only covers 162km. In terms of fault occurrence, the MTR encounters lesser minor delays as compared to SMRT. Furthermore, it was mentioned in the article that 37 per cent of MTRC's earnings were devoted to the rail maintenance. The article stated that only 19 per cent of the SMRT's earnings were provided for the maintenance on its railway system. Lastly, MTRC is well-known for its highly efficient manpower and crowd control measures. The total number of staffs stand at 5,800 and they perform routine checks on the long track of the railway system every couple of days, displaying their high level of work ethics. Whenever they go on their checks, a vehicle equipped with ultrasonic techniques will be drove along the track to spot for flaws that are not detectable with human eyes. Singapore on the other hand only executes its maintenance check on nearly a week basis, which revealed its lack of efficiency and effectiveness correlated to MRTC. A high-tech control center named Super Operations Control Center (OCC) operated by MRTC provides counter measures or useful solutions when problem occurs.

Edited 21 September 2017

Introductory Letter

Self-Introduction

09 September 2017

RE: Self-Introduction

Dear Professor Brad Blackstone,

My name is Ong Xun Qi, and I am writing to introduce myself to you as a student in your Effective Communication class. I graduated with a diploma in Clean Energy from Temasek Polytechnic. Initially, I did not like my course as i had difficulty coping with Engineering Maths which was beneficial for students with Additional Mathematics background and I was unable to get in to Amaths due to my mediocre results in Elemental Mathematics in secondary school days. Nevertheless, I persevered and managed to do fairly well in the Maths modules i took in my first year and a half. It was until year 3 when i was posted to a solar energy company for internship that aroused my interest in this field of work. Thus, I have decided to pursue my interest by furthering my studies in Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering(Land).

My goal for studying in this module is to improve on my communication skills. In every profession we take up in society, communication is an important factor in many situations. Several examples are working together with colleagues, giving presentations and liaising with clients. I hope to brush up on my writing skills and learn to be more professional in giving presentations to others. 

In terms of weakness in communication, I am very bad in writing with many grammar mistakes and improper sentence phrasing. Due to this, the main point in my writing has always been neglected or not brought up clearly. This becomes a big obstacle in my learning journey in English.

As far as a strength, I would suggest that i am able to maintain good eye contact with the audience while in presentations through my past experiences in polytechnic and internship. For instance, I was able to relay the important details of my Solar PV System to my lecturers back in the days I was doing my Major Project in Poly year 3.2 attaining a B+ grade for it. 

I believe that learning to communicate well is greatly beneficial in making me a better person and I sincerely look forward to improving myself from your teachings in the coming Effective Communication classes.

Best regards,

Ong Xun Qi

SIE2017
Edited 13 September 2017
Edited 16 September 2017
Edited 21 September 2017

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