The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has put up a call for a tender for the Bulim and Sembawang-Yishun Bus Packages on 29 November 2019.
The Sembawang-Yishun Bus Package marks the fifth tendered contract for the bus contracting model, while the Bulim Bus Package is currently up for its second term under the bus contracting model.
Under the Bus Contracting Model, bus routes were bundled into bus packages, consisting of a single bus depot, several bus interchanges, the bus routes and the buses themselves. With all bus infrastructure belonging to the Government, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) would contract out the bus package, select a bus operator (through a competitive tendering process), and lease these assets to the new operator.
As part of the transition, all existing bus services in Singapore (previously operated by long-standing duopoly between SBS Transit and SMRT Buses) were divided up into 14 route packages, operating under a negotiated contract with the incumbent operator until the Bus Package is tendered out competitively.
The Bulim Bus Package was first awarded to Tower Transit in May 2015, while the Sembawang-Yishun Bus Package has been operated by SMRT Buses under a negotiated contract since September 2016.
In a response by LTA to The Straits Times, this contract includes 29 routes in the Bulim Bus Package and 27 routes in the Sembawang-Yishun Bus Package. However, the bus service numbers of these routes were not mentioned back then.
Contract PT217: Bus Contracting – Bulim and Sembawang-Yishun Bus Packages involves three components, where tenderers are required to submit bids for.
- Bulim Bus Package
- Sembawang-Yishun Bus Package
- Combined bid for Bulim Bus Package & Sembawang-Yishun Bus Package
The tender closed on 30 March 2020, at 4:00pm sharp.
Bidding Procedure
According to tender details as published on government procurement portal GeBIZ, bids were submitted by 5 hopeful operators. namely:
| S/No | Country | Tenderer |
| 1. | China | Guangzhou Public Transportation Group No.3 Bus Co., Ltd |
| 2. | Local | SBS Transit Ltd |
| 3. | Local | SMRT Buses Ltd |
| 4. | Local | The Go-Ahead Group Plc |
| 5. | Local | Tower Transit Singapore Pte. Ltd. |
This is the first time that Guangzhou Public Transportation Group No.3 Bus Co., Ltd is participating in a local bus package tender. Chinese companies have participated in all previous rounds of bus package tenders, either tendered as standalone companies or in joint venture with local companies.
All four other tenderers (SBS Transit, SMRT Buses, Go-Ahead and Tower Transit) are incumbent operators.
See Also:
Tender Award
On 30 September 2020, the tender was awarded to Tower Transit Singapore Pte Ltd.
Main Article: Tower Transit awarded Bulim and Sembawang-Yishun Bus Packages
likely SMRT will win even that they have technically not won any yet
I live in Jurong West. Seeing Punggol people so good. Their bus operator, Go Ahead, so neat and professional, and they really strive to be better than SBS Transit, whereas the Tower Transit in Jurong West just strive to copy SBS Transit, I really hope that the Bulim package can go to Go Ahead, as the Loyang package has shown that Go Ahead is bringing their United Kingdom best practices to Singapore. What has Tower Transit brought to Singapore? Just merely more operators only, which does not really serve the purpose of increased competition. At the same time, I hope LTA can evaluate the bids properly, and only award the contracts to the bidders that truly deserve the contract, while adhering to democracy as much as possible. Because if everything is staged, there is no point. So, I really hope LTA can safeguard democracy in the tendering process. No need to give sympathy to any operator, because competition should always be the survival of the fittest.
Hopefully SBST doesn’t get both this time.
Bulim let new establish operator win,Sembawang-Yishun let SMRT retain.
If both let the new operators win or Go-Ahead.
Best if there MRT bidding too..
Basically, they want Tower Transit to operate Bulim and Sembawang packages at the same time, and when the time comes, they want Go Ahead to operate Loyang and Sengkang at the same time. Basically, it is this meaning. Hopefully that is not the case, and the tendering process can be truly democratic.
Yishan better give to bulim tower transit. sbstransit can’t get to see any hopefully
It’ll be cool if Yishun was given to Tower Transit.
Then Tower Transit will operate in the east also.
No. Considering TTS should stop holding Bulim and take back Bukit Batok to SMRTB. Then it’ll be less trouble for the City Direct Svcs 663 and 665.