System failure at Malaysia-Singapore border strands thousands of travellers
Intermittent faults had plagued the system for days before a total crash caused weekend misery for thousands
The worst congestion was reported at the Sultan Iskandar Building (BSI) Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Complex in Johor Bahru, where foreign visitors faced waits of up to two hours to clear immigration.
The problem also affected the nearby Sultan Abu Bakar Complex, though officials said conditions there remained manageable.
At least 39 autogates at BSI’s entry points and 29 at the exit areas of the bus halls had been experiencing intermittent faults for several days before a surge of weekend traffic caused the system to crash completely.
Malaysian citizens using local passports were still able to use functioning autogates, and vehicle and motorcycle clearance systems were not affected. However, the outage also extended to the KTM railway station at BSI, a security official said.