LTA identifies third-party vendor responsible for faulty bus ETA system
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LTA first detected issues with the system on Jan 10, with the glitch resulting in inaccurate bus timings and long wait times being shown to commuters.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
- LECIP Singapore, the vendor maintaining the bus arrival system disrupted for weeks, faces financial penalties as per LTA's service agreement.
- LTA detected system issues on Jan 10, affecting up to 4,000 buses due to a software defect triggered by a server failure.
- LTA is reviewing the disruption's causes with LECIP to ensure system stability; penalties are under review, with no further details given.
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SINGAPORE — The third-party vendor responsible for the upkeep of the bus arrival timing system that experienced disruptions for weeks is LECIP Singapore, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) disclosed on March 13 in response to queries.
Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow had said on March 3 in a written reply to a parliamentary question by Workers’ Party MP He Ting Ru (Sengkang GRC) that financial penalties will be imposed on the firm.
These will be in line with the terms of the service-level agreement with the vendor, he added. However, no further details were provided and the vendor was not identified then.
The Straits Times had contacted LTA for more information, including the vendor’s identity and the cost of the financial penalty imposed.
Responding on March 13, the authority said that it is unable to provide further details “as the matter of penalties is still under review”.
Contractor LECIP has worked with LTA since 2015 to manage and maintain the expected time of arrival (ETA) system for buses. Its responsibilities include system operations and maintenance, as well as ensuring the accuracy and availability of data.
According to its website, the firm started in 2012 and has so far “been focusing on (the) local bus business involving both hardware and software”.
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The products it lists span three categories – passenger information systems such as electronic displays, fare collection equipment like contactless card readers, and a transit management system.
The transit management system gathers various data from buses, such as their locations and operational status, and can be used in multiple ways, one of which is estimating the arrival time of a bus.
ST has contacted LECIP for more information.
“LECIP continues to support ETA system operations. LTA is reviewing the causes of the recent disruption and will work with them to ensure system stability and reliability,” the authority said.
LTA first detected issues with the system on Jan 10, with the glitch resulting in inaccurate bus timings and long wait times being shown to commuters on bus stop displays and apps such as LTA’s MyTransport.SG.
More inaccuracies were detected over the course of the week and the public was informed of the issue on Jan 21. The authority initiated a reset at 8pm that day.
This led to bus stop displays and apps, including third-party ones, being unable to provide information on bus timings.
At first, the technical issue was said to affect a “small proportion of buses”, but this was later revised to about half of the total public bus fleet in Singapore which, as at the end of 2025, numbered 6,067.
Another 1,000 buses were then identified on Jan 27 as needing manual updates. In total, about 4,000 buses were affected.
On Jan 22, it was estimated that the system would be completely fixed in four days, but this was later revised to the week of Feb 2. On Feb 7, the availability of bus arrival times was restored to above 90 per cent.
The system is designed to predict bus arrivals within a three-minute window at least 95 per cent of the time.
Mr Siow said in a written parliamentary response on Feb 12 that the root cause of the issue was a software defect on the buses, which was triggered by a server failure in January.
This led to a build-up of data in the internal memory storage of data transmitters on the buses, preventing many of them from functioning properly.
