Ekovest Construction (ECSB) has won a RM1.979 billion contract to build the Rapid Transit System Link (RTS Link) between Johor Bahru and Singapore.

The wholly-owned subsidiary of Ekovest was appointed by Malaysia Rapid Transit System (MRTS) – itself a subsidiary of the of Mass Rapid Transit Corporation (MRT Corp) – as the collaborative partner to Adil Permata (APSB), the main contractor of the RTS Link project.

In a Bursa filing on July 5, Ekovest said ECSB accepted a letter of award by APSB as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the RTS Link project. In November last year, transport minister Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong and his Singaporean counterpart S Iswaran exchanged the RTS Link grantor agreement.

The RTS Link is a cross-border rail service spanning 4 km between the Malaysia station in Bukit Chagar, JB and Singapore station at Woodlands North. The Malaysian portion will cover 2.7 km, while the remaining 1.3 km is in Singapore.

The project will also include the building of a new immigration, customs and quarantine complex (ICQ) facility next to the Bukit Chagar station, which interchanges with KTM and Iskandar Rapid Transit. Meanwhile, the Woodlands station will also have customs, immigration and quarantine (CIQ) facilities, and it interchanges with the Thomson-East Cost MRT Line.

Expected to be completed by end-2026 – ground breaking took place last November – the project will be a modern light rail transit (LRT) system with a capacity of 10,000 passengers per hour, per direction and an expected ridership of about 40,000 passengers per day upon opening.

This will be accomplished with four-car train sets that can hit a top speed of 80 km/h. The estimated train journey is six minutes between station with a frequency of 3.6 minutes during peak hours, which provides commuters between the two countries with fast and efficient transportation system that will help alleviate the congestion at immigration checkpoints for both countries.