Traffic Jams & Limited Immigration Booth In Singapore

LIMITED IMMIGRATION BOOTH

Kathleen Ann Kili and Nabila Ahmad has described how most motorists are getting annoyed with the traffic jams in Johor Bahru-Singapore Causeway Link in The Star Online with the title “motorists fed up with traffic jams”, published on March 14, 2016 (Kathleen and Nabila, 2016).

According to them, many motorists are not happy because there is no effort being taken to ensure that all immigration booths are open during peak hours especially on holidays and school holidays in both countries. Other than closed immigration booths, the situation is made worse by the additional security checks on the Singapore side. Citizens do not only have to face delay on the Malaysia side but the standard checks in Singapore side also consume lots of time.

Plus, there are some irresponsible officers in the Immigration and Quarantine Complex (CIQ) who often plays with their hand phones during working hours. This was stated by Nelson Benjamin in The Star Online which was published on June 18, 2018. Nelson (2018) also states that some officers turn up late for work which then resulted to immigration booths are not opening in time.

RAPID GROWTH IN QUANTITY OF VEHICLES OWNERSHIP

The quantity of vehicles ownership is increasing due to high population in our country. Qi Shouming (2015) studied that the quantity of motor car ownership has growth rapidly which then lead to the obvious contradiction between vehicles and roads. Many citizens in Johor Bahru decided to use their motorcycle to cross the border in order to avoid traffic jams. However, since there are too many motorcyclists and the lane provided for motorcyclist in CIQ are not enough, it causes congestion and slow traffic flow.

Downie (2008) also said that traffic congestion occurs because of the volume of vehicle is greater than the available road capacity. Downie (2008) argues that the massive increase of number of vehicle is because of economic surge in various economies which resulted congestion on roads. More cars on the roads are one of the reason which leads to increase in congestion. As the financial growth of citizen’s increase with increase in population, the demand for personal vehicles for daily commute also rises among citizens. Hence the increase in number of vehicles and increase in chances of congestion are directly related. Plus, Muhammad and Tokai (2016) states that owning a vehicle will help the government in producing more direct profit such as taxation and excise duties.I

MPROPER LANE MANAGEMENT

Another important fact in managing the traffic is the lane management. Some drivers are not well-disciplined enough to follow the lane discipline. They are very impatience to cross the border so they cut the line. For example, there are trucks or buses on cars lane which resulted in an obvious decreasing of traffic flow speed. Qi shouming (2015) has states that the mixture of transportation has led to traffic disturbance. There are so many types of vehicles that try to overtake other vehicles lane because of their selfishness.

ECONOMIC GROWTH

The growth of economy these days has led to many possibilities such as citizens around Johor Bahru work in Singapore. Some of them work in Singapore because of the salary given is high. However, to live in Singapore would cost a lot because living cost in Singapore is quite high.

Therefore, Malaysians who work in Singapore have to wake up early to cross the border if they want to reach to their workplace on time but even though they come up early, traffic jams still occurred due to lots of people that wanted to cross the border too. In the end, traffic jams that occurred will caused them to reach to their workplace late. Matthias Sweet (2014) found that the economic growth is initially associated with traffic congestions. Thus, this will disrupts business activities. The traffic flow will not be smooth and the speed will be affected. It affects a wide range of activities, services, goods, and markets opportunities due to congestion.