4-in-1 rail and bus depot will be built in East Coast for S$1.99 billion

SINGAPORE — A four-in-one rail and bus depot, said to be the world’s first, together with its reception tunnels, will be built in East Coast for S$1.99 billion by Korea’s GS Engineering & Construction Corporation, said the Land Transport Authority on Monday (March 21).

At the East Coast Integrated Depot, the train depots for the East-West Line (EWL), the Downtown Line (DTL) and Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL) will be stacked on top of each other, with a bus depot located next to them.

(Source: LTA)

The integrated depot will occupy about 36 hectares of land and can house around 220 trains and 550 buses. Doing this will save 44 hectares of land, equivalent to 60 football fields. Work is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2016 and be completed by 2024.

The LTA also announced that it had awarded three other contracts — for Siglap, Bayshore and Xilin stations — with a total value of about S$1.31 billion.

The S$176 million contract for Siglap station was awarded to a joint venture between John Holland and Zhen Hua (Singapore) Engineering. Both John Holland and Zhen Hua are subsidiaries of China Communication Construction Company.

The contract for Bayshore station and its associated tunnels was awarded to a joint venture between Woh Hup and Shanghai Tunnel Engineering Co (Singapore). This contact is worth S$296 million. Both Bayshore and Siglap stations are on the Thomson-East Coast Line and they will also serve as Civil Defence shelters as well. They will be completed by 2023.

Samsung C&T Corporation was awarded the S$834 million contract for Xilin station and its associated tunnels. This station is on the Downtown Line 3 extension (DTL3e) and the station is expected to be ready by 2024.

Except for Zhen Hua, all the other companies have experience working on Singapore’s Mass Rapid Transit system.

The 13-km East Coast stretch of the TEL will connect commuters living in the eastern parts of Singapore to the city and will benefit those in areas not currently served by the rail network such as Tanjong Rhu, Siglap, Marine Parade, Upper East Coast and Bedok South.

(Map of Thomson-East Coast Line. Note: Station names of the East Coast Stretch of the line (between Tanjong Rhu and Sungei Bedok) are working names. Source: LTA)

The East Coast stretch of the TEL will be completed in two stages. The first seven stations from Tanjong Rhu to Bayshore will be ready in 2023 while the remaining two stations will be completed by 2024.

DTL3e will be 2.2 kilometres long and consists of two stations. This extension to the 42-km DTL will improve public transport accessibility to the Changi Business Park and Expo areas and will be ready in 2024.