1987: The Introduction of a Bus Facility in Singapore

November 29, 1987

In the Republic of Singapore, the first part of a major bus station was officially opened in the planning area and residential town of Tampines in the East Region of that Southeast Asian city-state.

The Tampines Bus Interchange (TBI) had been built in response to the steadily growing population in that section of Singapore and the consequent need for a larger, more centralized facility to serve as the hub for local buses and commuter routes. (Tampines is third only to Bedok, likewise located in the East Region, and Jurong West in the West Region as Singapore’s most heavily populated planning area and residential town.) During the three days prior to the dedication of the TBI, local residents were allowed to visit the new structure to familiarize themselves with its layout.

Those presiding at the formal opening of the TBI included two members of the Parliament of Singapore for that area: Phua Bah Lee, representing Tampines Single Member Constituency (SMC); and Aline Wong, representing Changkat SMC (likewise based in Tampines). Changkat SMC had been formed in 1984 from a section of Tampines SMC. Four years later, most of Changkat SMC was merged into the newly formed Tampines Group Representation Constituency (also encompassing Tampines East, Tampines West, Tampines Central, and Tampines North); the remaining part of Changkat SMC was folded into what was then Changi SMC.

In 1988, construction on the rest of the TBI was completed. One of the busiest bus facilities of its kind in all of Singapore, the 6.7-acre (2.7-hectare) TBI is adjacent to the Tampines Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station. The TBI has become a key component of Singapore’s overall high-capacity transit system. This interchange is owned by the Land Transport Authority, a statutory board of the Singapore government’s Ministry of Transport, and run by the multimodal public transportation operator SBS Transit Ltd (known as Singapore Bus Services until 2001).  

Photo Credit: Terence Ong (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)

For more information on the Tampines Bus Interchange (TBI), please check out  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampines_Bus_Interchange

Additional information on SBS Transit Ltd is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBS_Transit