Bus arrival timing system on MyTransport.SG disrupted for about 95 minutes due to technical issues
Singapore's Land Transport Authority restored its bus Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) system after a 95-minute disruption on the MyTransport.SG app on 14 July morning. Bus services continued operating normally throughout the outage, which was attributed to technical issues.
- LTA's bus ETA system on MyTransport.SG was unavailable for about 95 minutes before normal service resumed.
- Bus services continued operating normally, while several alternative transport apps still displayed arrival estimates.
- The latest disruption follows multiple ETA system issues this year despite ongoing upgrades by LTA.
The Land Transport Authority's (LTA) bus Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) system on the MyTransport.SG app was temporarily unavailable on Tuesday morning before services were restored after about 95 minutes.
LTA alerted commuters to the disruption at 6.15am through a notification on the MyTransport.SG app, attributing the outage to "technical issues".
"However, bus services are operating as normal," the notification stated.
The display services resumed normal operations at 7.50am, according to LTA.
Bus services continued despite outage
Although commuters were unable to access live bus arrival information through the official app during the disruption, bus services continued running as scheduled.
Another transport planning application, Singabus, continued displaying regular bus arrival timings throughout the outage.
Online observations also indicated that alternative applications, including Citymapper and Google Maps, continued providing estimated bus arrival information.
Netizens highlight reliance on live bus timings
Many netizens said the disruption underscored how dependent commuters have become on real-time bus arrival applications, with several only realising there was an issue after bus timings disappeared from MyTransport.SG.
Others discussed why alternative applications continued functioning, with some questioning whether those platforms relied on crowd-sourced information or GPS-based data instead of the affected system.
Several users also complained that bus arrival timings have remained unreliable since previous technical glitches, particularly at bus interchanges where scheduled arrival times are sometimes displayed instead of live updates.
Some questioned why recurring technical issues have yet to be fully resolved despite continued investment in Singapore's public transport technology.
Due to technical issues, there will be no bus timings available until further notice
by u/Fun_Advance_5438 in singapore
Latest in a series of ETA disruptions
The latest incident follows another disruption on 12 June, when LTA's bus ETA system was unavailable for more than four hours.
In May, Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow said the authority was upgrading the bus ETA system as part of measures to minimise a repeat of the major disruption in April.
On 18 April, commuters experienced inaccurate bus arrival timings and extended waiting times at bus stops and on transport applications after fibre network cables were damaged during construction works for the North–South Corridor project.
Asia Piling Co, a subcontractor carrying out contiguous bored piling works for the project, damaged several fibre-optic cables. One of the cables formed part of the physical connection transmitting data to the ETA server.
Jeffrey Siow said the ETA system returned to full functionality after the damaged fibre-optic cable was repaired. He added that LTA's investigation found no other hardware or software malfunctions within the ETA system.
The April disruption came just months after another incident in January, when a "memory cache build-up" in onboard systems prevented buses from transmitting location data to the central server, resulting in inaccurate bus arrival timings being displayed.
