Bus timing system displays to be restored from 23 Jan, but issues will take 4 days to resolve

Bus timing system reconfiguration a ‘large-scale effort’, says LTA

Bus arrival timing displays, which have been unavailable at bus stops and apps since Wednesday (21 Jan) night, will return on Friday (23 Jan).

However, it will take around four days to fully resolve the issues affecting the Expected Time of Arrival (ETA) system, said the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in a Facebook post.

More than 60% of bus timings available from 23 Jan

From the start of passenger service today, the ETA system will be switched back on for tests and stabilising of operations, LTA said.

Commuters will be able to see more than 60% of bus arrival timings at bus stops and public transport apps such as MyTransport.SG, Singabus or SG Buses.

However, some timings may be “inaccurate” as the system is still under testing, LTA said.

These inaccuracies should “gradually become less common” as the system is progressively restored.

During this time, bus services will continue to run at normal frequencies, it assured.

About 50% of buses affected by data transmission issues

While the system was down, LTA’s engineers and contractor “worked through the night” to find the root cause of the “intermittent transmission issue” that caused the ETA system to be inaccurate.

They found a “memory cache build-up” in the systems on board buses. This disrupted data transmission in about 50% of all buses across operators.

Reconfiguring of the system and clearing of the cache has started, but this involves the on-board bus devices to be physically serviced, LTA said, adding:

As this is a large-scale effort, we estimate it will take around 4 days to complete.

LTA thanked commuters for their patience while the issue is resolved.

Bus timing system not available due to reset

The ETA system was reset from 8pm on Wednesday after commuters reported inaccurate bus timings and long wait times being displayed at bus stops and apps.

Many said that the ETA indicated was prohibitively long, only for the bus to show up in minutes.

LTA said the issue was first detected on 10 Jan, with more inaccuracies detected “over the course of the week”.

At the time, preliminary checks indicated a technical issue in the on-board systems on some buses that affected ETA data transmission.

Also read: S’pore commuters concerned about inaccurate bus timings on mobile apps, LTA to reset ETA system

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Featured image from MS News.