MALAYSIAN police were called in on Thursday to keep crowds in check at the new Johor checkpoint as chaos reigned. Thousands of Malaysian bus commuters pushed, shoved and beat on bus doors, trying to get a seat on a bus travelling to Singapore.

Police arrived at 8.30am to assist immigration officers and SBS Transit staff in herding the crowd into bus queues. At the former Johor terminal, Singapore-bound commuters just walked through a single-storey facility to get to their buses.The towering Sultan Iskandar complex however, has commuters climbing to the third storey for immigration clearance, a trip which takes about 10 minutes.

Immigration clearance takes less than a minute, but commuters hit a bottleneck when they get to the bus depot as there are not enough buses to move the number of commuters.The option of walking across the Causeway, which was possible at the old terminal, has gone so more people rely on buses to cross over to Singapore.

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