Yishun Bus Interchange

Yishun Bus Interchange is an air-conditioned bus interchange located at Yishun Town Centre, serving residential areas around Yishun and Khatib. It is the tenth air-conditioned bus interchange in Singapore, integrated within the Northpoint City shopping centre (South Wing) and North Park Residences condominium, while seamlessly connected to Yishun MRT station via an underpass at Basement 2. Nearby public amenities include Golden Village Yishun, Nee Soon Sports Centre, Yishun Polyclinic, Yishun Pond Park, and Nee Soon East Community Centre. Yishun Integrated Transport Hub opened on Sunday, 8 September 2019, with SMRT Buses being the anchor operator. As the tendered package awarded operator for the Sembawang–Yishun Bus Package, Tower Transit is the current anchor operator from 5 September 2021. It also replaces the Yishun's temporary bus interchange which replaced the previous interchange since 14 March 2015. History Previous sites In the early days of Yishun New Town, bus terminals were operated from both Yishun Avenue 5 Bus Terminal, Yishun Central Bus Terminal as well as the Mandai Road Bus Terminal. Feeder buses usually comes from Yishun Central Bus Terminal whereas trunk buses usually comes from Yishun Avenue 5 Bus Terminal. Before the opening, Mandai Road Bus Terminal was closed and operations shifted to Yishun Avenue 5 Bus Terminal. The original Yishun Bus Interchange was built at a cost of S$2 million, and it opened on 23 August 1987. The numbering was "80x" and "81x" for all feeder services and "85x" for all trunk services. New services were only tendered to Trans-Island Bus Services (TIBS) and was the first and only bus interchange purpose-built for the Trans-Island Bus Service that prevents double decker buses from entering the interchange. All bus routes were packaged under Yishun Bus Package since 1995. Service 171 was mandated to be under TIBS, with the exception of bus service 39 and 85, which were introduced by SBS Transit after 2001. Temporary bus interchange The shops at Block 923 were closed and subsequently demolished in 2012 due to the development plans. Residents who were residing at Block 923 were transferred to a new residential area. On 17 June 2013, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) released the land parcel where the former interchange and then-demolished HDB flat, Block 923, was located. The land parcel was launched for sale on 28 June 2013. As such, in 2014, Yishun bus package were redrawn into Sembawang-Yishun bus package and Seletar bus package respectively. All feeder services, as well as selected trunk buses were moved to Seletar bus package and trunk services joined all services in Sembawang and a few services in Woodlands to be under Sembawang-Yishun bus package. On 27 February 2015, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced the construction and co-location of a new air-conditioned bus interchange with the new Northpoint City integrated development, named the Yishun Integrated Transport Hub (YITH). The new interchange is slated to open in 2019. The integrated bus interchange will be linked to the existing Yishun MRT station by a new underpass under Yishun Avenue 2. As such, to make way for a new Integrated Transport Hub (ITH), the old bus interchange transferred operations to a temporary site at the junction of Yishun Central and Yishun Central 1 behind Northpoint Shopping Centre on 14 March 2015. The last bus service to leave the old interchange, Service 812, departed at 12:45am, 14 March 2015. This temporary interchange was closed on 7 September 2019 and the new Yishun ITH opened on 8 September 2019. Bus contracting model Under the bus contracting model, all bus services operating from Yishun Bus Interchange were divided into five bus packages, operated by three different bus operators. From 5 September 2021, Yishun Bus Interchange is operated by Tower Transit on a five-year term. List of bus services Note:Bus services with a (A/B/T) are shorter bus services then the normal ones and bus services with an (e) are express bus services References External links Interchanges and Terminals (SBS Transit) Interchange/Terminal (SMRT Buses)