Slow and steady: Rela personnel guiding local and foreign visitors at the bus hall of the BSI building to minimise congestion as the immigration autogate system is still experiencing technical diffculties.
JOHOR BARU: It’s been 48 hours but all the autogates at the Johor-Singapore land checkpoints are still facing technical problems resulting from the immigration autogate system’s sudden crash at the start of the weekend.
The situation yesterday impacted the clearance of foreign passport holders, though the bottleneck has eased somewhat compared to Saturday.
A security official said that the Bangunan Sultan Iskandar Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Complex (BSI) has a total of 39 autogates for entry and 29 for exits, while the Sultan Abu Bakar CIQ complex, also known as KSAB, has 12 autogates.
“Although the overall situation is manageable, the large volume of people during peak hours led to delays, especially in BSI,” he said.
Neither Malaysian passport holders nor those travelling using cars or motorcycles are affected, as they do not pass through the autogates.
The system crash mainly impacted those going through the bus halls where autogates are utilised.
The official explained that there are only 18 manual counters for bus passengers at BSI.
“Of the 18 counters, two of them handle the National Integrated Immigration System (NIISe) and another two are meant for MyBorderPass, as they are fitted with the QR code machines.”
This leaves 14 counters for the manual stamping of passports.
The official said that special lanes had been created for faster immigration clearance.
During weekends, the official said BSI clears more than 180,000 foreigners both ways. Over at KSAB, they can clear around 50,000 foreigners, he added.
“Until the autogate issue is rectified, there will be delays during peak hours and we hope people can better plan their trips and avoid rush hour travel in the morning and evenings.
“For now, repair works are underway,” the official said.
Since June 1, 2024, visitors from 63 countries, as well as diplomats serving in Malaysia and their family members, have been eligible to use the autogates for faster clearance.
The Border Control and Protection Agency in a Facebook post late Saturday encouraged foreigners to download and use the NIISe following the crash.
However, foreign nationals could also use the manual counters to clear immigration.
The Star had earlier reported on delays of more than 90 minutes for foreigners to clear immigration during peak hours on Saturday.
A Singaporean, who only wished to be known as Paul, shared on social media that he was held up for over two hours due to long queues when exiting BSI yesterday evening.
“I was informed by an officer who managed the crowd that the autogates for those returning to Singapore were only available for foreign passport holders from Gates 5 to 8.
“This caused more than two hours of clearance chaos, as the majority of people were squeezed together between the designated autogates and the manual immigration counters.
“As for Malaysian passport holders, they were directed to Gates 1 to 4. These gates previously allowed foreign passport users as well and while they may still accept them, each clearance takes more than three to five minutes, which jammed up the entire area,” he said.
Another Singaporean, who declined to be named, said he went through a similar situation two weeks ago.
“An officer directed me from the manual counter back to the autogate. I was able to get through on my second attempt,” he said.
Nurul Sofea Abu Bakar, 24, a Malaysian who works as a cook in Singapore, said she waited in the queue for about an hour despite not being directly affected.
“The bus had to wait for other passengers, including Singaporeans, who were affected by the glitch in clearing immigration.
“Normally, this takes only about 20 minutes, but this time it took over an hour,” she said.
