Singapore bus arrival timing issues traced to software defect, says Jeffrey Siow
SINGAPORE — Early investigations have found that Singapore’s recent bus arrival timing problems were caused by a software defect on buses, triggered by a server failure in January, Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow said.
The fault led to inaccurate or missing bus arrival predictions on bus stop displays and mobile apps, affecting commuters for weeks.
What went wrong in the bus ETA system
Mr Siow said the server failure triggered a defect in the software running on buses. This caused a build-up of data in the internal memory storage of on-board data transmitters. Over time, the data pile-up stopped many transmitters from working properly.
These transmitters are devices that send bus location and operational data back to the system that calculates ETAs, or expected time of arrival, for commuters.
About 4,000 buses were affected
The impact was wide. Mr Siow said around 4,000 buses experienced intermittent data transmission and missing arrival predictions.
He was responding in writing to questions from Sengkang GRC MP He Ting Ru on how many services and commuters were affected, and whether the issue raised cybersecurity and resilience concerns.
No cybersecurity concerns, minister says
Mr Siow said there were no cybersecurity concerns linked to the incident.
He added that the defect has been fixed and system performance is stabilising. “The same error should not recur,” he said.
A disruption that began on Jan 10, with recovery still ongoing
Singapore has faced issues displaying accurate bus arrival times since Jan 10. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said on Feb 7 the system had been restored to above 90 per cent availability, though it was still short of full recovery at that point.
LTA said missing timings and longer gaps between predicted arrivals were expected to keep falling as the system stabilised.
Singapore’s bus ETA glitch has now been traced to a technical fault rather than a security incident. With the software fix in place and availability above 90 per cent, the focus has shifted to stabilising performance and preventing a repeat of the disruption.
