Singapore — The Immigrations and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) experienced a surge in applications by those who wish to travel under the Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTLs), specifically from Singapore neighbours Malaysia and Indonesia.
On Monday (Nov 22) at 10 am, applications for VTLs for Malaysia and Indonesia opened, allowing short-term visitors and long-term pass holders to enter the country.
Those eligible are required to apply for a Vaccinated Travel Pass (VTP) through the SafeTravel website.
The site crashed on Monday, despite ICA anticipating the surge in traffic and upscaling the system over the weekend to cater to more users.
“But there was an error in configuration,” said ICA on Monday evening, quoted The Straits Times.
ICA highlighted that about 35,000 users tried logging in at the same time when the application period opened.
It was reported that the SafeTravel website crashed at about noon, a message, “We are currently down for Maintenance” was posted on the page.
At about 3 pm, the site was back up, although cited high volume.
“We regret the inconvenience caused and thank applicants for their understanding,” said ICA.
“There is no quota for vaccinated travel passes for air travel under the VTL. Singapore citizens and permanent residents do not need to apply to enter Singapore.”
Children below 13 also don’t need to apply for a VTP, indicating that the surge was mainly due to those not in these categories and wish to enter Singapore.
As of Tuesday morning (Nov 23), the website appears to be operational, although a notice of high volume is posted on the top page.
The notice reads, “The Application Service for Safe Travel Pass is experiencing high volume. Please try again later if you are unable to log in.”
VTP applications for those coming from India, Finland, and Sweden also opened on Monday starting from 6 pm. /TISG
Read related: 1,440 people to travel between Johor-Singapore during first week of vaccinated travel lane
1,440 people to travel between Johor-Singapore during first week of vaccinated travel lane