Passengers aboard an SMRT bus were forced to disembark after smoke appeared to come from the rear of the vehicle while it was travelling along the Tampines Expressway (TPE) near Punggol.
The incident involved bus service 110, which operates between Buangkok and Changi Airport. It occurred at around 9.15pm on Friday, October 16, near a bus stop at the junction of the TPE and Punggol Road.
Footage circulating on social media showed passengers calmly leaving the bus after it stopped at a nearby bus stop. Some passengers were seen briefly returning to tap their EZ-Link cards before moving away from the vehicle.
SMRT Buses deputy managing director Vincent Gay said the bus captain stopped at the next bus stop and alerted the company’s bus operations control centre.
All 30 passengers were safely transferred to another bus to continue their journeys, and no injuries were reported. The affected vehicle was subsequently towed to a depot for inspection.
Preliminary checks found that coolant had leaked from a PVC pipe onto a hot component, producing vapour that looked like smoke. SMRT said there was no fire and investigations were continuing to establish the cause of the leak.
The incident prompted online discussion about the safety of Mercedes-Benz Citaro buses, a model that has been involved in several public bus fires in Singapore this year.
At least three bus fires involving the model were reported during the first half of 2026. In February, an SBS Transit bus caught fire along the Pan Island Expressway. Another caught fire while travelling on the TPE in March, while a third incident occurred near Woodgrove Primary School in May.
Senior Minister of State for Transport Murali Pillai said in Parliament in August that investigations had traced the earlier fires to failures involving different components. Authorities had found no evidence of a common underlying cause, and the affected parts were still within their manufacturers’ recommended service lives.
As a precaution, the Land Transport Authority instructed public bus operators to conduct additional inspections of Mercedes-Benz buses. Those checks did not reveal any abnormalities.
The authority is also working with operators to improve inspection procedures for older buses and assess whether further preventive measures are needed to reduce fire risks.
