Very bad traffic at Singapore Tuas checkpoint every day in past 2 weeks

Life's back at work has been quite tough, added by the stress of daily commute in past couple of weeks. Traffic is usually pent up all the way til end of 2nd link bridge in morning (7.50-9 am), which means it takes an average 50 minutes to 1 hour just to clear the bridge. Traffic leaving Singapore at 5.45-6pm is also bad with queuing time of average 30 minutes. Hence, daily travel time has been averaging 3.5 hours per day :(

Let's just hope that things will improve this week....argh!!!!

Have good Sunday everyone,
Erika

Here we go again. Renovation part 2.

Sorry for being M.I.A for a while. Life has been hectic lately as we kick started stage 2 renovation in our house. We are now back to living in 1 room and without kitchen and TV. I feel a lot more confident that stage 2 will be way smoother and less painful than what we went through in stage 1, now that we have found a reliable designer contractor. We are redoing quite a number of cabinets & rewiring work done by previous contractors. We are expecting to finish stage 2 in 3rd week of October, so I am super looking forward to that! Stage 3 is exterior and we'll start thinking about it in Oct.

Renovation aside, I've also had some interesting time with our car. Besides getting a speeding ticket & demerit points (watch out for your speed on AYE near exit 20-22 towards Tuas) and forking SGD4K for car repair, life's generally good :)

Very much looking forward to October!!!

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Johor tourist arrivals to increase after Legoland opens & Checkpoint traffic update

I hope both Singapore and Malaysia Immigration checkpoints have started planning on expanding and improving the immigration process and capacity, especially at Tuas 2nd Link. Daily morning queues at Singapore Tuas checkpoint has been very bad and miserable these 2 weeks. I've tried being at the SG checkpoint at 6.40 am, 7.30 am, 7.40 am, 8.30 am and almost all were equally as bad with cars lined up to 3/4 of bridge at one point. I do seriously hope that SG checkpoint will start doing something to ease the queue.

Johor tourist arrivals to increase after Legoland opens

ICA confiscates over 4,000 cartons of cigarettes at Tuas Checkpoint

Wow - what was he thinking? Usually when things like this happen, we can see the custom officers checking Malaysian cars a lot more thoroughly. Let's hope that it won't impact the checkpoint clearance time in the morning.

ICA confiscates over 4,000 cartons of cigarettes

This is what it looks like with traffic @ checkpoint

Quick look at traffic jam on causeway heading into Johor's checkpoint during one of Chinese New Year's holidays. It took me 45 minutes to clear the Johor checkpoint....not as bad as the jam during fingerprint enforcement days (we were stuck for at least 2 hours).
Needless to say...a lot of kiasusm!

Singapore - Johor Commute

Toll charges:

We usually take the Tuas 2nd link as it's closer to our house and it's less crowded than the Woodlands link.

A 2 ways trip via Tuas 2nd link will cost around:
- SGD 3.20 each way
- RM 7.50 each way

Travel Time:

Driving time is around 1 hour to get to Singapore CBD area, but this depends on the timing of your drive.

The causeway is normally packed on Saturdays afternoons & public holidays (Singapore to Johor direction), so we'll try to avoid those timings when commuting between the 2 cities.

I've driven from our house in Johor to Changi airport in 1 hour, departing 9 am from home, so it's not that bad.

Cars:

Since we're Singaporean PRs, we have to use a Singapore registered vehicle so we purchased a 2nd hand car from Presto (http://www.prestoexpatmotoring.com/). This is a company which caters to expatriates in Singapore for motoring services. The service so far has been very good and they have been very helpful even post sale, e.g. car servicing, etc. For car insurance, we purchased our insurance from Direct Asia (http://www.directasia.com/) who is the newest insurance player in Singapore market. Based on our experience, their prices are very competitive (if not cheaper) and customer service is very competent.

Immigration:

We used to fill the Malaysian immigration cards for every entrance, however, since getting the MACs (Malaysian Automated Clearance card), we are no longer required to fill in any immigration forms when entering Johor. This automated pass is available for 1st & 2nd link checkpoints entrance only and is available for investors/foreginers employed in the Iskandar project.

The required documents for our applications are:
- 2 copies of Sales Purchase Agreement of our property
- Passport photo for each applicant
- RM30 application fee per applicant
- Photocopy of passports (Details page & last immigation stamp page)
- Passport validity of min 2 years
- Application forms (obtained at the application centre)

We applied through the immigration office in Iskandar Investment Berhad office located at:
G-12 Block 8
Danga Bay, Jalan Skudai
Johor

It took less than 1 hour to have our applications approved and passes inserted into our passports.

For more information on MAC, you can visit:

www.iskandarmalaysia.com.my/malaysia-automated-clearance-system