In April 2025, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) started to grant a two-year lifespan extension to Scania K230UB (Euro IV Batch 2) buses that were expected to be retired.
The Scania K230UB (Euro IV Batch 2) buses comprises of 400 buses that were registered from April 2008 to January 2009 under SBS Transit.
These buses were due for retirement from April 2025 to January 2026 as part of their statutory 17-year lifespan. 68 of these Scania K230UB (Euro IV Batch 2) buses were retired early in the past several years.
Extension of Earlier Buses
Earlier in September 2024, 56 of the 68 remaining Scania K230UB (Euro IV Batch 1) buses received a two-year lifespan extension.
Early Retirement
In January 2022, SBS Transit retired several Volvo B9TL (CDGE) and Scania K230UB buses as part of a deal with LTA involving the transition of the Downtown Line to the New Rail Financing Framework (Version 2). As part of this deal, SBS Transit replaced 241 buses (144 double-deck and 97 single-deck buses) with newer, more environmentally friendly, and cost-efficient government-owned buses.
All 97 retired single-deck buses were Scania K230UB (Euro IV) models, consisting of 33 Batch 1 and 64 Batch 2 buses. Of these, 20 buses—13 from Batch 1 and 7 from Batch 2—were repurposed as hotel rooms at The Bus Collective.
Extension
| Lifespan Expiry (17 years) | Number of buses extended | Number of buses to be retired |
| April 2025 | 26 | 22 |
In April 2025, 26 out of 48 buses due for retirement had their lifespan extended to April 2027.
Other buses may be subjected to lifespan extension nearer to the end of their statutory lifespan in the later months.
All 600 Scania K230UB Buses will receive a 2 Year Lifespan Extension from March next year if there are lack of new electric buses to replace them.
So It Would Be All Scania K230UB Euro V Buses Will then Recieve a 2-Year Lifespan Extension from March 2026 Onwards because of the Refurbishment Conditions.
BYD BC12 & Zhongtong Seems to Be Registering Quite Slowly…First 3/4 of Euro IV Batch 1 got extended, now the first few of Euro IV Batch 2 got extended…might as well extend the Euro V OCs as well since the EV buses are quite slow at being put into service…Many Buses are due to retire soon, faster than more EV buses can be input. Silly LTA with their goal of having full EV bus fleet. Really Dream Big haha. Do they even have the amount of charger needed for over thousands of EV buses soon? These EV buses also still cannot ply changi airport/tunnels, so how in the future? Got introduced a way to put out the fire fast when it catches fire? These EV buses usually do split shift and cannot run fullday as most get cover by Scania or Citaro while they charged in depot, how? Need to buy even more to cover the ones charging? Should just stay with diesel buses and upgrade from Euro 6 to 7 when it does comes, better…
Also maybe should buy other brands also not just cheap china made buses…last thing i want is everyone get burned instantly when bus catch fire …
Haiz.. LTA becoming from bad to worse. All this crappy quality built Chinese buses that probably won’t last. Should look into hybrid / European buses.. vote wisely for the upcoming election!
Don’t understand why the need to extend Euro 4 buses when Euro 5 OC is retiring
Not a good sign. All the hoopla about them wanting a more modern, greener fleet but can’t introduce the BYD and Zhongtong fast enough to meet the number of units they know are retiring already?
Yeah it’s pure dumb and stupid
I think it’s less about them being able to deploy the BYDs and Zhongtongs fast enough, but because the older depots lack EV charging stations and aren’t able to accommodate E-buses in large-scale yet. They need more time until the replacement depots with adequate EV charging facilities like GBDEP, KCDEP, PPDEP and SPDEP are complete, till then the diesel buses are here to stay for a little while more.
Not a good excuse, they have had years to prepare for this day and they have fallen far short. SWDEP, SEDEP, MDDEP cannot intake more electric buses and swap the Citaros/A22s out to replace the K230UBs?
They should just transfer 48 excess Citaro for Mandai and straightway scrap the OCs.