During the three major SMRT disruptions in December 2011, Singaporeans flocked to online sites to share updates, find news and exchange views.
Experian Hitwise has released data about Singapore Internet users during that period.

Top search terms containing SMRT (Comparison between 24 rolling weeks ending 10 December and 24 December)
Experian Hitwise found that top search variations used by Singaporeans include SMRT breakdown, SMRT twitter, SMRT CEO, SMRT CEO Saw Phaik Hwa, SMRT news, SMRT Facebook and SMRT disruption.
Variations for the word “SMRT” on all search engines in Singapore saw an increase of 38% in related search clicks on week ending 24 December, the week after the disruption of train services.
“SMRT” remained the key search term used by Singaporeans within the two weeks. Fast moving event-related search terms from the two periods include specific person searches, SMRT CEO and SMRT CEO Saw Phaik Hwa.
Ex-SMRT CEO, Saw Phaik Hwa, was widely discussed during the crisis.
Search terms around her name generated high online traffic in several social media websites and community forums including Facebook (17.98%) and Singapore HardwareZone Community (10.11%).

Top websites receiving traffic from terms in SMRT Disruption Period (Comparison between 24 rolling weeks ending 10 December and 24 December).
SMRT’s corporate site remained the top website receiving traffic from the search terms during and after the incident despite a 20% decline of search clicks share over the course.
However, traffic on social media and news websites increased the most over the course.


Among the countries, Hong Kong secured the lowest rate of Google+ adoption despite being the heaviest users of social networks – almost 60 per cent of visits are to platforms like Facebook and YouTube, while 40 per cent of the visits are to local Chinese forums and social media including Discuss, Uwants and Sina Weibo etc. Globally, it was ranked 90th.


