Bus arrival timing disruption: Vendor to be penalised

The penalties will be in line with the service level agreement with the vendor. Bus arrival timing disruption: Vendor to be penalisedSign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inboxThe system had caused inaccurate bus timings and long wait times to be displayed to commuters at bus stop displays and apps.ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUIAqil HamzahSummarySummarySingapore's bus arrival timing system was disrupted from Jan10 due to a software defect, affecting about 4,000 buses and displaying inaccurate timings.The system was fully restored on Feb 12, with LTA choosing not to announce any firm dates due to fluctuating performance during rectification works.Financial penalties will be imposed on the third-party vendor due to the disruption. Future reviews will improve LTA's risk assessment process.AI generatedPublished Mar 03, 2026, 07:30 PMUpdated Mar 03, 2026, 07:30 PMSINGAPORE – Financial penalties will be imposed on a third-party vendor over issues that disrupted the bus arrival timing system, said Acting Minister for Transport Jeffrey Siow on March 3.In a written reply to a parliamentary question from Workers’ Party MP He Ting Ru (Sengkang GRC), he said the penalties will be in line with the terms of the service level agreement with the vendor, but did not provide further details.Ms He had asked why a firm date for full service restoration was not announced and if any service-level agreement breaches had occurred.Mr Siow said the Land Transport Authority (LTA) provided regular updates on the system’s recovery rather than committing to a firm restoration date due to fluctuating performance.“To fully restore the Expected Time of Arrival system, physical works had to be carried out for a significant proportion of the bus fleet, and the accuracy of the system had to be verified against actual bus arrival records.“During this period, performance of the system fluctuated as the proportion of rectified buses deployed for service each day varied,” he said, adding that the system was fully restored on Feb 12.LTA first detected issues with the system on Jan 10, which caused inaccurate bus timings and long wait times to be displayed to commuters at bus stop displays and apps such as LTA’s MyTransport.SG.More inaccuracies were detected over the course of the week, and the public was only notified on Jan 21, after which the authority initiated a reset at 8pm that day.In doing so, bus stop displays and apps, including third-party ones, were unable to provide information on bus timings.Initially, the technical issue was said to affect a “small proportion of buses”, but LTA later said it affected about half of the total public bus fleet in Singapore, which as at the end of 2025 numbered 6,067.On Jan 22, the system was estimated to be completely fixed in four days, but this was later revised to the week of Feb 2. However, on Feb 7, it was still not completely restored.On Feb 12, Mr Siow said in a written parliamentary response that the root cause was a software defect on the buses, which had been triggered by a server failure in January.This led to a build-up of data in the internal memory storage of data transmitters on buses, preventing many of them from functioning properly. About 4,000 buses were affected in all.Separately, Ms He also asked Mr Siow if risk assessments were carried out on the system, and if any vulnerabilities were detected.To this, he said the system undergoes a risk assessment every two years, with the last one conducted by the LTA in July 2024. At that point, only minor issues were detected and subsequently addressed. The issues that led to the recent disruptions were not picked up, and Mr Siow said that reviews will be done to improve the process in the future.The Straits Times has contacted LTA for more information.More on this topicInaccurate bus arrival timings caused by defective software after server failure: Jeffrey SiowBus arrival time system: How does it work, and when was it introduced?Aqil Hamzah is a transport journalist at The Straits Times. He is also interested in issues related to crime and technology.See more onSingapore ParliamentBusesPublic transportJeffrey SiowHe Ting Ru