Down memory lane on Green Bus Company No. 1

For Superintendent Patrick Ong, ties to the Causeway span his professional and personal lives.

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The 47-year-old head of strategic communications and media relations at the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) started his 23-year career with the agency, then known as Singapore Immigration and Registration, as a senior officer at the Woodlands Checkpoint in December 2001.

His duties then involved overseeing the teams of officers performing immigration clearance for cars, motorcycles, buses or cargo vehicles going through the checkpoint, with the teams rotating between the zones monthly for each vehicle type.

Now, he still finds himself at the Woodlands Checkpoint regularly as part of his professional duties, facilitating media coverage of ICA initiatives and preparing officers ahead of interviews or media events taking place there.

An example of this was the announcement in March that travellers passing through the Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints in cars can clear immigration using QR codes instead of their passports.

Mr Ong’s connection to the Causeway runs in his veins – his great-grandfather and grandfather owned and ran the iconic Green Bus Company, whose bus No. 1 plied the only Singapore-Johor route from 1950 to the 1970s.

The loop service – which is still roughly mirrored by the present-day Service 170 operated by SBS Transit – started from the old bus terminal in Queen Street and traversed Bukit Timah Road, crossed the Causeway and entered Johor Bahru.