S$7m upgrade for cruise centre after April bottleneck

SINGAPORE — Following an incident in April when the docking of two large cruise ships overwhelmed its facility and created a severe human traffic bottleneck, the Marina Bay Cruise Centre Singapore (MBCCS) has implemented a slew of upgrades that cost S$7 million.

The enhancements include more check-in counters — from 80 to 100 — and an altered layout of the taxi bay for smoother operations.

When two large cruise ships with more than 5,000 passengers docked at the centre on April 17, the massive number of arrivals created a human traffic gridlock and caused heavy congestion on the roads in the area. Illegal parking offenders and waiting taxis contributed to the problem and effectively closed two lanes of the triple-carriage road leading to the seaport.

The S$7 million enhancements were made after SATS-Creuers, the terminal operator for MBCCS, carried out an analysis of what went wrong in the wake of the incident. “We analysed the volume of passengers that we handle; we also got feedback from our stakeholders, the cruise liners, their agents and their handlers, as well as government agencies. With that, we were able to come up with this slew of initiatives and enhancements,” said chief executive officer for SATS-Creuers, Mr Bob Chi.

By increasing the number of check-in counters and adding two more X-ray machines to the existing 13, passengers can expect to clear immigration faster.

A fourth boarding bridge was also installed to allow more passengers to move from ship to port. A reorganisation of its baggage-conveyor systems has also allowed the cruise centre to triple its baggage handling capacity to 1,200 per hour. The taxi bay layout was also overhauled to allow multiple taxis to be boarded at the same time instead of only one.

The Land Transport Authority’s efforts to clamp down on illegal parking in the area have also improved traffic conditions.

The seaport has conducted three trials to test the upgrade of its facilities and the results have so far shown positive signs, said Mr Chi. “We are pretty confident that with these enhancements, it will be a better experience for the passengers coming through MBCCS this coming season,” he said.

The cruise centre has seen an average of 10 double-ship calls — in which two ships dock at the same time — per year since it started operating in May 2010 and has received nearly 110 ship calls between April last year and March this year, compared with 82 ships the year before.

MBCCS also saw passenger traffic doubling to 416,000 in the same period. The cruise industry in Singapore is expected to grow and passenger numbers are expected to hit 1.5 million by next year.