SINGAPORE: The restoration of the Expected Time of Arrival (ETA) system, which displays estimated bus arrival times at bus stops and on transport apps, is expected to take four days, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said in an update on Thursday (Jan 21).
This comes after LTA reset the ETA system from 8pm on Wednesday, following technical issues that had caused long wait times to be displayed.
Commuters have since been unable to view buses’ estimated arrival times on electronic displays at bus stops and interchanges, as well as on apps such as MyTransport.SG, CityMapper and Google.
LTA said on Thursday that its engineers and ETA system contractor had discovered a “memory cache build-up” in the on-board systems of some buses following the reset. It added that about 50 per cent of the bus fleet across all bus operators were affected by this issue.
In order to clear the cache on the affected buses, technicians have to physically service the on-board devices.
“Given the scale of the work, the process is expected to take about four days,” said LTA.
The authority added that it will switch the ETA system back on at the start of passenger service from Friday in order to conduct testing and stabilise the operations.
Bus arrival timings will not be fully available or accurate during this period while system performance is “progressively” restored and testing is completed.
“More than 60 per cent of the bus arrival timings will be available for commuters from 23 January at touchpoints such as the electronic passenger information displays at bus stops and interchanges, apps like MyTransport.SG and third-party apps such as CityMapper and Google Maps,” LTA said.
For the remaining bus services, commuters may still see missing or inaccurate arrival timings, but these issues should “gradually” become less common as the system is progressively restored, it added.
LTA said on Wednesday that preliminary findings had indicated an “intermittent transmission” issue with the on-board systems for some buses, resulting in missed bus arrival predictions for a small proportion of buses across its bus network.
The issue was first detected on Jan 10, with more inaccuracies being “subsequently detected over the course of the week”, the authority added.
Buses have continued to operate at their usual frequencies amid the ETA system reset, with commuters able to check the frequency on the SimplyGo and public transport operators’ websites.