Cross-Border Services

Cross-border bus services refer to public bus services plying between Singapore and Malaysia. They operate daily, catering to high volumes of cross-border passengers travelling between the two countries. These bus services are especially crowded during the weekday peak hours as Malaysia residents commute to and from Singapore for work, and on weekends when leisure travellers from Singapore head to and from Malaysia.

There are two road links between Singapore and Malaysia, namely the Johor–Singapore Causeway and Tuas Second Link, with the former being more popular due to its proximity to the city of Johor Bahru. Both road crossings are served by public bus services and have immigration checkpoints at each end. The Causeway is served by Woodlands Checkpoint (Singapore) and Sultan Iskandar CIQ Complex (Malaysia), while the Tuas Second Link is served by Tuas Checkpoint (Singapore) and Sultan Abu Bakar CIQ Complex (Malaysia).

Most services operate between 5 am and midnight, with CW2 between Queen Street and JB CIQ operating 24 hours a day.

Cross-Border Procedure

At each checkpoint, all passengers must alight from the bus at the designated alighting point, and proceed through immigration checks before re-boarding the bus. Customs processes for both Singapore and Malaysia are carried out at their respective checkpoints.

When re-boarding a bus after customs clearance, passengers can continue their journeys on the same group of bus services without incurring a new ride. For Singapore buses, tapping out at a checkpoint and tapping back onto any similar public transport bus service (160, 170, 170X or 950) will continue the journey. As for Causeway Link, journeys across the Causeway can be done on any bus service (both cash and Manjalink).

Currently, cross-border services are operated by a number of Singapore and Malaysian bus operators, namely:

• SBS Transit (160, 170, 170X)
• SMRT Buses (950)
• Ridewell Travel (AC7)
• Causeway Link (CW-prefixed routes)
• Transtar Travel (TS-prefix routes)
• Singapore-Johore Express (SJE)

List of cross-border bus routes:

Many cross-border bus services between Singapore and Johor Bahru are available at both Woodlands Crossing (Causeway), which leads straight into Johor Bahru city, or via the Tuas Second Link, which largely serves the western Johor region including the Gelang Patah, Nusajaya and Bukit Indah areas.

For Woodlands Crossing (Causeway), the checkpoints on both sides are referred to as Woodlands Checkpoint (Singapore) and JB CIQ (Malaysia). For Tuas Second Link, the checkpoints on both sides are Tuas Checkpoint (Singapore) and CIQ Second Link (Malaysia).

Usually, the bus journey between checkpoints (i.e. Woodlands Checkpoint – JB CIQ; Tuas Checkpoint – CIQ 2nd Link) can be made on any service operated by the bus operator which you have a valid ticket on. For example, if one arrives at Woodlands CIQ on Service 170, one can board any of SBS Transit’s service 160, 170 or 170X bus across the Causeway without counting as a transfer (or SMRT Bus Service 950 as well). This also applies to Causeway Link services across the Causeway and Tuas Second Link.

See also: Woodlands CIQ Complex, Sultan Iskandar CIQ Complex, Tuas CIQ Complex, Sultan Abu Bakar CIQ Complex

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