JOHOR BAHRU: An additional 250 immigration officers will be deployed to the land checkpoints in Johor by September, said its chief minister Onn Hafiz Ghazi on Thursday (Jun 15). 

This on top of the 100 immigration officers that were already announced for June in order to address the traffic congestion issue at the Bangunan Sultan Iskandar’s CIQ Complex (BSI) at the Causeway and the Sultan Abu Bakar Complex (KSAB) at the Second Link. 

Speaking during the Johor assembly sitting, Mr Onn Hafiz outlined some immediate and short-term measures to reduce traffic congestion amid a wait for the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link to begin operations in 2026. 

Among the measures announced include increasing the number of passenger buses, controlling the flow of traffic especially in the bus routes, modifying the position of the electronic gate (e-gates) and issuing more M-Bike (Malaysia Biometric Identification of Motorbikes) stickers.

“The state government did not choose to just wait but instead took immediate and short-term measures to overcome the issue that is affecting many parties, while waiting for the RTS (to begin operations) in order to overcome the congestion issue at land checkpoints,” Mr Onn Hafiz told the state assembly.

He was responding to questions posed by state assemblymen about efforts by the Johor government to reduce traffic congestion at the two CIQs.

The RTS Link aims to connect Bukit Chagar in Johor Bahru city to Woodlands in Singapore, serving about 10,000 passengers per hour each way to help ease traffic congestion on the Causeway. 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 300,000 crossed the Johor-Singapore Causeway daily, making it one of the world’s busiest borders.

During the 2022 year-end holiday season, more than 360,000 travellers passed through the Woodlands and Tuas Checkpoints daily.

Last month, after a working visit to the RTS Link Project Marine Viaduct site in Johor Bahru, Singapore’s Transport Minister S Iswaran said that construction on the Singapore side was around 50 per cent completed. 

Meanwhile, his Malaysian counterpart Anthony Loke noted that the construction on the Malaysia side was around a third complete.