Johor Bahru-Singapore RTS Link timeline: A project 16 years in the making

In a press release, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that this was done so that commuters need to clear immigration only once for each way of travel.

It was also announced that the terminating stations of the RTS Link would be in the vicinity of JB Sentral on the Malaysia side and in the vicinity of Republic Polytechnic on Singapore’s side.

In its 2013 master plan, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) included plans for the RTS Link to be integrated with the Thomson Line, which would eventually be developed and renamed as the Thomson-East Coast Line.

LTA’s master plan also said that the first phase of a joint engineering study to determine the technical parameters for the RTS Link was completed.

In 2015, Mr Lee announced during the Singapore-Malaysia Leaders’ Retreat that Woodlands North on the Thomson-East Coast Line would be the RTS Link terminus on Singapore’s side.

Bukit Chagar in Johor Bahru was confirmed as the terminus in Malaysia at the following year’s Leaders’ Retreat.

2017 to 2020: Agreements and delays

In 2017, it was announced that the RTS Link would begin passenger services by the end of 2024, carrying up to 10,000 passengers per hour in each direction.

Singapore rail company SMRT and Malaysia’s metro operator Prasarana Malaysia signed an MOU the same year to form a joint venture company to operate the rail line.

In January 2018, both countries inked a bilateral agreement for the RTS Link, reiterating an end-2024 target for the start of passenger services. Certain amendments were also made to the proposed track alignment and agreed upon by both countries. 

Several months later, however, Malaysia’s Pakatan Harapan alliance took power after the general election, with the new government saying it intended to proceed with the RTS Link but wanted to review its cost.

In January 2019, then-Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan said the RTS Link was “behind schedule” and that “milestones have been missed”.

In April that year, Mr Khaw said that Singapore and Malaysia were working on an agreement to suspend the project for six months at Malaysia’s request. This was finalised in May, with the transport ministry saying at the time that Malaysia would have to bear the agreed costs incurred by Singapore if it decided not to proceed with the project by an end-September 2019 deadline. 

The suspension period was further extended by a month to end-October “in the spirit of bilateral cooperation”, without any cost to Malaysia. This was then extended to Apr 30, 2020, and then Jul 31, 2020.