The Tuas West Extension
What you see is not what you get.
On paper, I’ll be the first to admit, it sounds pretty bad. Daily entries and exits at Joo Koon station alone are roughly equal to or greater than the four stations of the TWE combined. Traffic is just so bad that SMRT now opts to run only four trains per hour or so during off peak hours — with 5–6 minutes frequency on the EWL mainline and two of three trains ending only at Joo Koon, that’s around 15–18 minutes between trains.
Of course, the TWE project had other goals as well; namely, to provide a semi-expressway for Tuas Port traffic from the AYE in the form of the Tuas Viaduct, as well as to build a separate main depot for the EWL so that it didn’t have to share the heavy maintenance facilities of the NSL’s Bishan Depot. So at the end of the day the stations were a nice bonus.
Still, a thought experiment awaits — since they’re built anyway, how can we further make them more useful?
What was supposed to happen
The initial plans in 2008 called for a 14km extension with five stations. Based on the provided map, we can see that a majority of the line would have been in the Tuas South direction, maybe only with one or two stations in Tuas West compared to today’s three. The remainder would go towards Tuas South and the upcoming Tuas Port.
Obviously things did not go as planned and only 7.5km was built — the Tuas South segment that got deleted was likely made up for by the addition of Tuas Link station. The only hint to the existence of potential rail service to Tuas South are the extra two platforms at Gul Circle. But these are awkward to use given their height, and that if the CRL interchanges with any TWE station, it is highly likely that the CRL station will be underground to avoid a very dramatic change in elevation. Fun for a train fan, not so much for a civil engineer.
An underground CRL will also likely be well-placed to cross Tuas Bay with an underwater tunnel, whereas an aboveground line would have to have supports built for the viaducts or even some kind of dramatic cable bridge like in Sydney or Vancouver. Well, I’m not sure how much of a problem this may be, especially since URA’s masterplan actually called for Tuas Bay to be filled in and reclaimed. Some shipyards may have to relocate, so we’ll need to wait and see.
The sum of its parts
Let’s suppose, for the sake of discussion, that there is an alternate reality in which the TWE didn’t exist. We could have provided the new EWL depot by acquiring half of Raffles Country Club first, leaving them with just one golf course instead. The Tuas Viaduct could have been done as a road-only viaduct. But that would probably have been a lot of money for not a lot of public benefit, and it probably says something that the HSR project had to be used as an excuse to acquire the entire RCC site. And that’s it, basically, with the butterfly effect not taking us very far.
The big unknown now, if you ask me, remains to be the Tuas South sector of the line. Given the highly industrial nature of the Tuas area, automation of industrial and port operations and the corresponding impact on manpower needs by these sectors, could significantly affect the expected passenger catchment of a Tuas South extension compared to what might have seemed feasible in 2008. Sending large 6-car trains down there every 2 minutes, while quite necessary on the rest of the EWL, may be far too much capacity during off-peak hours.
I’m of the opinion that the construction of Joo Koon bus interchange actually did more than the entire TWE. It played a large part in decongesting Boon Lay bus interchange, where several buses that used to have to go all the way to Boon Lay could simply turn short at Joo Koon instead. The same, however, does not apply to Tuas Bus Terminal, where the relocated terminal is still a significant distance from Tuas Link station, and the station itself is also awkward to get to by road from the main Tuas South access roads.
Thus, there’s really not a lot of things you can do in the interim period. You can’t even say you want to buy shorter trains to serve the TWE because there’s no place for the shorter trains to terminate (unlike, say, Guanglan Road on Shanghai Line 2)— the spare Gul Circle platforms won’t work because there’s no way for trains to switch levels and go back to where they came from, you’d have to build it.
Think multimodal
So, what can we do? A lot of it will rely on the flexibility of buses, yes, but if well-planned, it may be able to survive any potential rail development and continue to offer last-mile connections in that kind of environment — all the more in an industrial estate where density is inherently going to be lower than residential or commercial areas. Of course, there will also be a need for built infrastructure too. But whatever is done, it will need to be done carefully, since you don’t want the buses getting in the way of goods vehicles heading for Tuas Port.
The first thing I think I would do would be to establish a bus terminating facility at EW32 station, using the land taken up by the Tuas Viaduct as it turns from Pioneer Road to Tuas West Road. It would then be possible to run public bus services from there to Tuas South as well as the initial phases of the Tuas Port, until a more long-term solution is found. At the very least, bus services plying the length of Tuas West Road/Tuas South Ave 3 could probably survive an MRT extension, especially if the lower density allows train stations to be placed further apart, reducing cost and trip time.
The second thing would be to encourage company shuttle bus operations to also use EW31 and EW32 stations. This is probably the hardest part because unlike commercial and public transport, you can’t determine it by fiat. However, you can drive them out — road network changes in Boon Lay are quite inevitable especially with JRL construction ramping up, so restrictions on heavy vehicles could work. After 2028, with the JRL Jalan Boon Lay stations likely to face the same problems too, the same can be done with making public and private bus operations for the industrial estates depart from the new JRL stations, allowing the facility to be removed altogether.
A bus network redesign would not get very far given the required coverage area. But what might work would be perhaps either to bring back on-demand bus services, and perhaps consider the use of minibuses within the industrial estate. Or maybe what JTC was trying with self-driving pods in the Jurong Innovation District could work as well, given the wide roads in the area.
Doors close and doors open
With the HSR supposed to enter Singapore from the Tuas area, and subsequently use the RCC site to descend into an underground tunnel for the rest of the way to Jurong, plenty of land was reserved in the vicinity of Tuas Link and the Tuas Checkpoint for the HSR track. But if it no longer happens, that land can become freed up unless we do things like building the terminal anyway and sending KTM trains to it.
Without the HSR, it means that the status quo of intercity buses being the main form of transport up to Malaysia remains. Currently, many intercity bus operators mainly depart from Beach Road outside the Golden Mile Complex, where they have their offices. A possibility could be to use the land around Tuas Link station to construct a proper long-distance bus terminal for intercity buses to Malaysia. These bus operators could then be asked to relocate to such a facility, which means their vehicles will no longer need to enter the CBD and resolves traffic issues in the Ophir-Rochor area.
Siting such a terminal at Tuas not only makes use of the land there, it also becomes possible to build direct access ramps from the Second Link into the terminal directly, so that they will no longer need to enter Tuas Checkpoint. Immigration clearance for passengers can then take place at the terminal itself, before they join their buses, much like at an airport. And if commuter operations for JB cross-border buses can also be shifted to such a bus terminal, it may be able to provide enough reverse-peak travel demand for the EWL too.
Of course, while doing this sounds weak if MRT is the justification alone, this in a way is an example of how we can change the land use, and if possible, reduce congestion of buses at the border checkpoints as well.
