SINGAPORE ― Rush hour commuters were hit by a double whammy on Thursday morning (March 1) after ride-hailing firm Grab was hit by a technical glitch, and the Downtown Line was delayed by a signaling fault.

Grab told TODAY that services were restored fully at about 11am.

At around 8.30am, Grab said it is facing a technical issue with its app, and some rides may only accept cash payments. 

Screenshot of Grab's Facebook page at about 8.30am on Thursday announcing there is a technical issue with its app. 

“Our engineers are already looking into this and we expect to be back up in 30 minutes,” the firm announced on Thursday morning. Vietnam is also hit by the same issue. 

TODAY understands that commuters can still pay for rides with cash, and service is resuming slowly for other rides. 

Screenshot of the Grab app requesting for service at 9.15am on Thursday (March 1).

The root of the technical issue is unclear, with a Grab spokesperson saying only that its engineers were working to resolve the issue and expect it to be back up in 30 minutes.

A teacher who only wanted to be known as Ms Low, 59, was trying to book a Grab car to get to school at around 6.30am when she encountered an error message: The server was down. She turned to Uber instead as she was in a rush and could not walk out to hail a taxi.

“I’ve never encountered this problem before. It went on for at least half an hour,” she added.

A 40-year-old Grab driver who declined to be named said that he was unable to log into the Grab app from 7am to 8.30am. The full-time driver said that he expects to suffer at least S$60 in earnings during the outage. 
However, he was able to log into the app and take bookings since 8.30am. So far, he has taken three bookings.

Singapore commuters are not the only ones affected. Grab also reported similar technical glitches in Indonesia and Vietnam on Thursday morning.

Earlier, at 6.51am, train operator SBS Transit announced that there is a signalling fault on the Downtown Line towards Expo and Bukit Panjang. 

Train services are still delayed and commuters are advised to add an additional 15 minutes of travelling time.

“Recovery works (are) in progress. We are sorry,” SBS Transit added. 

In another update 50 minutes later at 7.41am, the train operator said the service remained delayed, and there were free passing bus services between Botanic Gardens station and Chinatown station. 

Some commuters said on social media that the train stopped at every station for more than 10 minutes. 

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KENNETH CHENG AND LOUISA TANG