KULAI – Contra-flow lanes, which allow motorists to use lanes meant for the opposite direction, will be activated at the two land checkpoints in Johor in anticipation of a high volume of vehicles from Singapore during the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Johor’s works, transportation and infrastructure committee chairman Mohamad Fazli Salleh said on Dec 21 that the state government anticipated there would be heavy traffic from Singapore at both Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) complexes at the Causeway in Johor Bahru and the Second Link in Iskandar Puteri.

“(The activation of contra lanes) is to help ease congestion... for those entering Malaysia from the island republic,” he said.

Dry runs were initiated in October to test these lanes to ease traffic congestion, and early signs showed major improvements to traffic flow, said Johor’s chief minister Onn Hafiz Ghazi then. 

On Dec 19, Singapore’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said travellers who plan to enter Malaysia by car during the year-end festivities should expect to wait up to three hours for immigration clearance.

ICA said it expects very heavy traffic at both Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints till the end of the year given the consecutive long weekends of Dec 23-25 and Dec 30-Jan 1.

Traffic flow at both land checkpoints has already exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

For the Dec 15-17 period, more than 1.3 million travellers used the checkpoints, or an average of nearly 435,000 a day – an increase of almost 30,000 over the same period in 2019. THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK