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SINGAPORE: As construction on the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link progresses, work to connect it to the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL) will begin in 2025. This will be done at the existing Woodlands North station on the TEL, at basement 1, connecting the RTS Link to Singapore's MRT network. More than four-fifths of the overall civil infrastructure works in Singapore have been completed, authorities said in an update on Friday (Nov 29).
The marine and land viaducts are almost completed. "The remaining works include architectural works, roadworks, installation of electrical and maintenance systems, and other key systems such as immigration gates," Singapore's Land Transport Authority (LTA), Malaysia's Mass Rapid Transit Corporation and RTS Operations (RTSO) said in a joint media release. RTSO - which will run the RTS Link service - is a joint venture company formed between transport operators Prasarana Malaysia and Singapore's SMRT Corporation.
The 4km JB-Singapore RTS Link is expected to begin service by the end of 2026. It aims to ease traffic congestion on the Causeway – one of the world's busiest border crossings – by ferrying up to 10,000 passengers an hour each way on a journey that takes about five minutes. Infrastructure companies appointed by the Malaysian and Singapore governments are responsible for designing, building and maintaining the RTS Link civil infrastructure.
Singapore will be ready to progressively grant RTSO access to the civil infrastructures within the country from the end of the year. As for Malaysia's infrastructure company, it had granted earlier-than-scheduled access to RTSO to the RTS Link's maintenance depot, on Sep 30. It will progressively hand over access to the remaining railway infrastructures from the end of the year.
The railway civil infrastructure works in Malaysia, which encompasses the maintenance depot, Bukit Chagar Station, as well as terrestrial and marine viaducts, is 93 per cent complete. "The focus at the start of next year will be on the fitout and facade installation works for the depot, station and ICQ Complex as well as remaining civil, architectural, mechanical and electrical installations, and roadworks," said the joint media release. "RTSO is ready to commence installation of the RTS Link rail systems from end-2024 onwards.
These include laying the tracks for the RTS Link, as well as the signalling, communications, integrated supervisory control and traction power supply systems." In January, then-prime minister Lee Hsien Loong and his Malaysian counterpart Anwar Ibrahim marked the completion of a 17.1m-long connecting span linking the marine viaduct between the two countries.
The railway infrastructure of the RTS Link project is also now connected end-to-end from the Wadi Hana Depot in Johor to Woodlands North in Singapore. Authorities commemorated this milestone by completing the installation of an aesthetic feature - a structure situated near the connecting span along the marine viaduct. The structure is meant to depict the clasping of hands, "which symbolises the close partnership and ties between the two countries", the authorities said.
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