The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has called a tender for the Tampines Bus Package on 19 December 2024, under Contract PT220: Bus Contracting – Tampines Bus Package.
As part of the Bus Contracting Model implemented in 2016, the LTA entered into a Negotiated Contract with SBS Transit to operate bus services under the Tampines Bus Package for an initial 8-year duration, ending in 2024. In November 2021, this contract was further extended for 1 year and 10 months (ending in July 2026), as part of an LTA–SBS Transit Framework Agreement that saw the Downtown Line transition to the New Rail Financing Framework (Version 2).
Bus services under the tendered package term from July 2026 will be operating out of the East Coast Bus Depot, which is expected to be completed and opened in 2026.
On 19 September 2025, LTA announced that the tender has been awarded to Go-Ahead Singapore.
Bus Services
In response to queries by Lianhe Zaobao in December 2024, an LTA spokesperson revealed that the tendered package term for the Tampines Bus Package will commence in July 2026.
The package contains 27 bus services: 26 existing bus services, and one upcoming new service to be launched under the Bus Connectivity Enhancement Programme (BCEP) in 2025. This was later revealed to be Feeder Service 299, which commenced operations on 27 April 2025.
As of April 2025, the 27 existing bus services under the Negotiated Contract (PT207) of the Tampines Bus Package are:
| Service | Route | Type |
| 4 | Tampines ↺ Changi North Way | Trunk |
| 10 |
Tampines ↔ Kent Ridge | Trunk |
| 10e |
Bedok Road ⇄ Shenton Way / Anson Road | Express |
| 18 | Tampines North ↔ Bedok North Bus Depot | Trunk |
| 19 |
Tampines ↺ Airport Cargo Road | Trunk |
| 20 |
Tampines ↺ Changi Business Park Avenue 3 | Trunk |
| 23 | Tampines ↺ Rochor Canal Road | Trunk |
| 28 | Tampines ↔ Toa Payoh | Trunk |
| 29 | Tampines ↺ Changi Village | Trunk |
| 31 |
Tampines ↔ Toa Payoh | Trunk |
| 37 | Tampines ↺ Changi North Crescent | Trunk |
| 38 | Tampines ↔ Bedok | Trunk |
| 39 | Tampines Concourse ↔ Yishun | Trunk |
| 47 |
Changi Business Park ↺ Amber Road | Trunk |
| 65 |
Tampines ↔ HarbourFront | Trunk |
| 69 |
Tampines ↺ Bedok | Trunk |
| 72 |
Yio Chu Kang ↔ Tampines | Trunk |
| 81 |
Tampines ↺ Serangoon Central | Trunk |
| 127 |
Tampines ↺ Tampines Industrial Avenue 5 | Trunk |
| 129 |
Tampines North ↔ Saint Michael’s | Trunk |
| 291 |
Tampines ↺ Tampines Street 81 / Tampines Street 32 | Feeder |
| 292 |
Tampines ↺ Tampines Street 22 | Feeder |
| 293 |
Tampines ↺ Tampines Street 71 / Tampines Avenue 7 | Feeder |
| 296 | Tampines ↺ Tampines North Drive 2 | Feeder |
| 298 |
Tampines North ↺ Tampines Avenue 5 | Feeder |
| 299 | Tampines North ↺ Tampines Street 96 | Feeder |
| 513 | Tampines Avenue 5 ⇄ Shenton Way / Anson Road | Express |
Short Trip & Supplementary Bus Services
These services do not add to the overall service count for the bus package.
| Service | Route | Type |
| 20A |
Simei Street 1 (Blk 148) → Changi South Avenue 1 (Expo Stn Exit B) | Short Trip |
| 29A | Tampines → Tampines Avenue 7 (Blk 497D) | Short Trip |
| 31A | Tampines → New Upp Changi Road (Tanah Merah Stn Exit A) | Short Trip |
| 39A |
Pasir Ris Central (Opp Pasir Ris Stn Exit B) → Jalan Kayu (Aft Seletar Camp G) | Short Trip |
| 39B |
Punggol Way (Blk 220C) → Pasir Ris Central (Pasir Ris Stn Exit B) | Short Trip |
| 72A |
Yio Chu Kang → Hougang Central (Opp Hougang Ctrl Int) | Short Trip |
| 72B |
Yio Chu Kang → Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5 (ITE Coll Ctrl) | Short Trip |
| 127A |
Tampines → Tampines North Drive 1 (Opp Blk 610C) | Short Trip |
| 129A | Tampines Avenue 1 (Temasek Poly East G) → Bartley Road (Bartley Stn Exit A) | Short Trip |
| 129B | Bartley Road (Gambir Ridge) → Tampines Avenue 1 (Opp Temasek Poly East G) | Short Trip |
| 291T |
Tampines ↺ Tampines Street 81 / Tampines Street 32 | Terminating Trip |
| 293T | Tampines ↺ Tampines Street 71 / Tampines Avenue 7 | Terminating Trip |
| 298X |
Tampines North ↺ Tampines Street 86 | Supplementary (Express Feeder) |
Bus routes primarily operate from Tampines, Tampines Concourse and Tampines North bus interchanges, where the awarded operator will likely be the anchor operator.
Tender Details
The contract listing in GeBIZ states a contact delivery date of 4 July 2031. Given a 5-year base period for BCM tendered contracts, this indicates a likely contract start date sometime in July 2026.
Similarly, East Coast Bus Depot is also projected to open in 2026. The multi-storey bus depot is part of the East Coast Integrated Depot site and can accommodate over 500 buses, including the capacity to charge about 240 electric buses.
LTA later confirmed the July 2026 start date, and that buses would be based at East Coast Depot.
The tender closed on 17 April 2025. According to tender details as published on government procurement portal GeBIZ, bids were submitted by 5 hopeful operators. namely:
| S/No | Country | Tenderer |
| 1. | Hong Kong, China | Bravo Transport Holdings Limited |
| 2. | Local | SBS Transit Ltd |
| 3. | Local | SMRT Buses Ltd |
| 4. | Local | The Go-Ahead Group Limited |
| 5. | Local | Tower Transit Singapore Pte. Ltd. |
Tender Evaluation
In addition to the usual quality factors, LTA will also evaluate the bidders’ proposals for electric bus operations, as revealed by LTA in response to media queries published by Zaobao and Straits Times. The considerations include:
- Optimising the deployment of electric buses
- Maintenance of assets such as the electric buses and infrastructure
- Ensuring the safe operation of the electric buses
Reference:
- 淡滨尼巴士配套开放竞标 陆交局注重电动车队运营提案 | Lianhe Zaobao [Published 25 Dec 2024]
- Contract to run 27 public bus routes in Tampines from 2026 up for bidding | The Straits Times [Published 30 Dec 2024]
September starts on Monday… Awaiting tender results here… kindly post here when ann’t is made…
Tender should be announced next month. Fingers crossed. But feels like SBST is not going to win though. The E-buses deployment in SWDEP is just in a mess.
Still seeing alot of KUBs operating in place of E-bus over the weekends, although this has significantly changed ever since the new batch of E-bus went into svc (SG32XX series and SG343X – SG344X series)
It’ll be another loss within two yrs if SBST loses again. Soon, SBST will experience an ‘economies-of-scale crisis’. A sad event, considering SBST has served us all these years.
Most probably: Go Ahead will win the package.
Otherwise, Go Ahead would only have Loyang package, and it would have an existential crisis.
Go-Agead has substantial operations in The UK. Their economies-of-scale is there then. If I’m not mistaken, Go-Ahead too participates in our bus card initiatives.
Up till now, no new electric buses are seen at Tampines bus interchange! I wonder if the LTA is purposely delaying the deployment of new electric buses at the 3 Tampines bus interchange namely Tampines, Tampines Concourse, and Tampines North or it will be until 2026 when the new East Coast Integrated Depot is completed before new electric buses can be deployed to the 3 bus interchanges to replace the old Scania K230UB buses. A total failure of SBS Transit and the LTA in its promise to replace all the Scania buses with the electric buses. Do Tampines have to wait for a long time before new electric buses can be deployed or the BYD and Zhongtong electric buses are not meant for Tampines?! In that case, I really hope that LTA will award the Tampines bus package to SMRT, GAS or TTS because SBS Transit is always the slowest in deploying new buses at Tampines! Tampines is always the last new town to get new buses! Except for the Mercedes Benz Citaro buses and Volvo double deck buses with plate numbers from SBS 9200G to SBS 9212Y which are firstly deployed to Tampines bus interchange, all other types of buses are seen being the slowest deployment to Tampines! What is the point of procuring electric buses to replace the existing old buses when Tampines takes the longest time for its old buses to be replaced with new buses! If the LTA really wants to replace the old Scania buses with new electric buses, it should consider asking other bus depots for help in temporarily using their electric charging facilities to charge these new buses while in storage bfore new bus depots with electric charging facilities are completed! Now what I can see at Tampines bus interchange is more and more Scania buses generating noise pollution because of their obsolete engines! Since the LTA has stated that all buses with 17 years of service will be replaced with new electric buses, it should be executed quickly before engine breakdowns with the old Scania buses get worse!
U want to have new buses, at least check whether the infrastructure is ready right? That’s why all the newly registered BYDs and zhongtong have been going over to SWDEP. As of now, there’s roughly 200 of them already (Practically all the Sengkang-hougang elligible SD buses have swinged to E-bus already).
And regarding new buses, that’s not true at all. Tampines is under BNDEP control. We all knows how SBST favours BNDEP with basically the most amount of bus models (With UP second). Looking at how Batch 3 mercs, A22 swinged to BNDEP from SMRT.
The rest of the depots can dream on. Had it not been for SWDEP, the north-east region wouldn’t see any new buses to date. BBDEP on the other hand is just… plain pathetic… Seems to be the worst disliked.
Best is to take 72 out and integrate into Seletar and 81 to Serangoon-Eunos which start from Woodleigh to Tampines.
Take svc 5 and 21 instead.