Around 4,000 buses affected by ETA system fault in Jan. 2026: Jeffrey Siow

Around 4,000 buses were affected by intermittent data transmission and missing bus arrival timing predictions during the Expected Time of Arrival (ETA) system fault in January 2026, said Acting Minister for Transport Jeffrey Siow on Feb. 12.

Siow was responding to a parliamentary question filed by Workers' Party Member of Parliament (MP) He Ting Ru regarding the incident.

Inaccurate bus arrival timings

The issue, first detected on Jan. 10, led to unusually long or inaccurate bus arrival timings being displayed at some commuter touchpoints.

It was previously reported that the ETA system on the MyTransport.SG app underwent restoration works and was switched back on from Jan. 23 onwards.

No cybersecurity concerns arising from the incident

Siow said as buses are deployed across different services at varying times, there is no estimate of how many commuters were affected. However, bus operations continued as per normal.

He added that predictions from the ETA system are cross-checked against actual bus arrival timings recorded through a separate Bus Fleet Management System to help authorities detect spikes in inaccurate or missing predictions.

Preliminary investigations found that the incident was caused by defective software combined with a server failure in January 2026, Siow said.

These led to a buildup of data in the internal memory storage of on-board data transmitters, causing many of them to malfunction.

Siow also affirmed there were no cybersecurity concerns arising from the incident.

"The software has since been fixed and the same error should not recur," he said, noting that an upgrade of the Bus Fleet Management System has also been underway since 2024, and will help to integrate and enhance bus arrival time predictions.

Top photos from Land Transport Authority/Facebook and Mothership