Monday, October 29, 2018

Reduce the congestion at the checkpoints

I give my views about the third link to Johor Bahru.

It is good to build a third link, but it is costly and will take many years to be ready.

We should act now to improve the traffic flow in the existing two links.

The clearance on the Singapore side is too slow. Often, it takes a longer time to clear the Singapore side than the Johor side. Do not blame the traffic. Both sides have to deal with the same traffic.

Last week, I returned to Singapore through the second link. It took less than 5 minutes to clear the Johor side by car. It took 45 minutes on the Singapore side.

I found that 2 booths were not manned. Only 4 were manned at that section.

if all 6 booths were manned, the clearance would have been much faster.

It is deplorable that the Singapore side was not able to get all the booths manned, leading to a long wait for the travelers.

It is inefficiency and wasteful.

For bus travelers, both authorities can talk to each other and locate the clearance in the same building at the point of departure.

The traveler from Singapore can clear through the Singapore checkpoint and proceed to clear through the Malaysian checkpoint at the Woodlands side.

A similar arrangement can be made at the Johor side. The traveller from Johore can clear through the Malaysian checkpoint and then the Singapore checkpoint in the same building.

This is the arrangement at the train checkpoint for the KTM shuttle. It works well. It is considerate to the people.

We can also increase the number of train departures for the KTM shuttle. Currently, there are about 15 departures a day. It can be increased to 60 departures. It is possible to have a train depart every 15 minutes.

The actual journey takes 5 minutes. As there is one track, it should be possible to have the train goes up and down in 10 minutes and allow 5 minutes for boarding and alighting.

Earlier this year, the Malaysian side had asked the Singapore side to allow more departures. Why is the Singapore side not giving an answer after so many months?

There is unfairness in the fares being charged. The traveler pays $5 to leave Singapore and RM 5 to leave Johore. The fare from Singapore can be reduced to $2.

We can have the third link in a few years time. Meanwhile, there is much that can be done to improve the efficiency of the existing two links.

I urge the Singapore govt to consider the welfare of the people who have to travel regularly. Most of them are workers who come to work in Singapore.


Work with Malaysia to increase the train service and to reduce the time for clearing both checkpoints. Reduce the congestion on the two links.


Tan Kin Lian



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Our government is not so interested in the welfare of the lower class. Look at the airport, everything is new and upgraded all the time. Look at the land crossing, although there were many calls to centralised all the bus services to Malaysia and Thailand at a central location but the authorities cannot be bordered. Now passengers have to board and alight at places which are unsuitable for that. Look at the automatic immigration clearance machines at the checkpoints, they are so old and heavily used but they have not been upgraded since don't know when.

Blog Archive