Menteri besar Hasni Mohammad said based on discussions between the Malaysian and Singaporean governments, the number of people using the lane is expected to rise to 2,500 in the second week and 5,000 the following week.

As such, he hoped that the opening of the land VTL, which is scheduled simultaneously with the air VTL on Nov 29, will not be delayed.

“Based on the capacity and initial preparations to open the border, in the first week the number of inbound and outbound travellers will reach 1,440.

“But whether the travellers will use public transport or private vehicles – this is being finalised,” he said at the Johor state assembly here today.

Whatever the decision, he said, Johor was ready with the necessary SOPs and had developed a system that could help the federal government in the land VTL implementation.

“We have the Johor Travel Safe system that helped the federal government when the Periodic Commuting Arrangement (PCA) and the Reciprocal Green Lane (RGL) were implemented,” he said.

To ensure that SOPs and screening procedures run smoothly, a pilot test on the land VTL would be conducted tomorrow, said the menteri besar.

He said this in reply to supplementary questions from Jimmy Puah Wee Tse (PH-Bukit Batu), Andrew Chen Kah Eng (PH-Stulang) and Liow Cai Tung (PH-Johor Jaya), who wanted to know details about the implementation of the land VTL, SOPs, categories and number of travellers allowed.