(Pic obtained from AsiaOne)
Regularly referred to as the busiest land crossing in the world, the Woodlands-Johore causeway sees traffic from Malaysia alone hitting the low 300k daily, and coupled with Singapore's outgoing and incoming vehicular traffic, one can only imagine the chaos especially during rush hours.Hence, the Singapore's ICA implementation of the QR Code access by 2nd time or more visitors will help reduce interaction time between enforcement officers and transients, this alleviating traffic congestion.
Malaysia, though lagging behind these initiatives, have a pro-active Chief Minister in Johor's Onn Ghafar whose surprise checks of the Malaysian border crossing complex is seen as a hindrance by immigration officials. The latest outburst by the union of Immigration officers only goes to show that the problem lies not with the government but at the agency itself.
While Singapore's ICA is often seen to review and implement measures to ease congestion, the same cannot be said about Malaysia. In the latest visit by Onn Ghafar, he pointed out 13 closed counters by Malaysian Immigration officers, a logical deduction, on why congestion is often experienced, notably by Singaporean who frequent Malaysia for obvious reasons.
Malaysia's failure to address these issues will only cause more frustrations to drivers from both sides and can only letout the 'Malaysia mah' sigh (in Singlish, 'Malaysia-mah' means it's because of Malaysia, and is often let out as a sigh when things are done differently from Singapore)
Given the upcoming long weekends both for 29 March Good Friday & Easter as well as the next 10 April Hari Raya Puasa, which will see an added increase in traffic, let's hope the Malaysians will wake up and up their game to better manage the border crossing.
Just a note, wouldn't it help better if Malaysia's immigration change their shift assignments rather than smack right during rush hour?
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