On 24 May 2025, at about 5:28 am, a traffic accident occurred at the Woodlands Checkpoint. A departing Singapore-registered car collided with an arriving Malaysia-registered bus along the Causeway.

2.          Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers immediately responded to the accident to render assistance and manage the traffic situation. Both the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) and Police were activated. The driver of the car and his three passengers were conveyed conscious to hospital. There were no reported injuries among the bus passengers, and the driver of the bus declined medical assistance.

3.          Due to high traffic volume and infrastructural constraints at the land checkpoints, ICA has been conducting contraflow traffic management operations at the Singapore side of the Causeway to ease traffic congestion during the daily peak. This includes converting the departure lane for heavy vehicles at the Causeway into an arrival lane, to expedite the arrival of heavy vehicles which might be blocking traffic along the Causeway. During this time, should the departing car traffic surge, part of the departure cargo zone may be converted to clear cars departing Woodlands Checkpoint, to minimise the tailback of traffic along the BKE. As part of ICA’s safety procedures, barriers would be set up to divert departing car traffic away from the contraflow lane (arriving heavy vehicles using the departure lane for heavy vehicles).

4.          However, in this accident, preliminary investigations found that the contraflow operation was activated before barriers were put in place, which was not in accordance with our safety procedures.

5.          This accident should not have happened. ICA is treating it very seriously, and we are assisting the Traffic Police who are investigating the accident.

6.          Immediately after the accident, ICA implemented a safety pause by suspending contraflow operations at both land checkpoints over the weekend. We will comprehensively review our safety measures before restarting the contraflow operations. Motorists can expect some delays in the interim and we apologise for any inconvenience.

IMMIGRATION & CHECKPOINTS AUTHORITY
24 MAY 2025