From top, left to right: View of JB Sentral from the north-east with the Sultan Iskandar CIQ Complex and CBD in the background, station concourse, JB Sentral rail platform transfer hall, JB Sentral Bus Terminal located beneth the railway station concourse, and link bridge entrance to the bus terminal
Johor Bahru Sentral (also known as JB Sentral) is an integrated transport hub in the Bukit Chagar suburb of Johor Bahru, the capital city of the state of Johor.
Johor Bahru Sentral is the southern terminus of KTM Intercity's Ekspres Rakyat Timuran service to Tumpat, as well as one of two stations on KTM Intercity's Shuttle Tebrau, the other being the Woodlands Train Checkpoint in Singapore across the Johor–Singapore Causeway. The station did not provide any train services from January to June 2022 due to the Gemas-Johor Bahru electrification and double-tracking project. Services only resumed in July 2022 after the new tracks between Johor Bahru and Kempas Baru were ready to use.[1] Since 12 December 2025, Johor Bahru Sentral is also served by KTM ETS services.
Johor Bahru Sentral serves as the Malaysian immigration checkpoint for southbound rail passengers towards Woodlands. Northbound rail passengers from Woodlands are processed by Malaysian immigration and customs officers at Woodlands Train Checkpoint prior to boarding.
The station complex is planned to be the main hub for rail and bus transportation in Johor Bahru. It is proposed to be the main station integrating KTM Intercity services, KTM ETS services, KTM Komuter Southern Sector services, as well as acting as the main transit bus terminal of Johor Bahru. In the future, it will be connected to the Bukit ChagarRTS Link station. [2][3]
Location
Johor Bahru Sentral station is located in the central area of Johor Bahru city, the capital of the state Johor, around Bukit Chagar. Being part of Southern Integrated Gateway, the connection between the CIQ complex and the station is just via the connecting walkway over Jalan Jim Quee to the east and is very near to Johor Causeway where the only train connection to Singapore lies straight to Woodlands Train Checkpoint. It is also connected to City Square shopping complex via walkway over Jalan Tun Razak in the east. Both roads also provide road connections to the station, with Jalan Jim Quee also provide road access for motorcars from/to Singapore as it directly connected to the CIQ complex.[citation needed]
History
Johore Wooden Railway
It was said that the history of Johor railway developments started in the 1869 when Abu Bakar of Johor (then known as Maharaja) officiated the construction of the Johore Railway, which lines are planned to be built northwards towards Mount Pulai, 18 miles (29.0km) from the terminus here. While the line was indeed built from Johor Bahru and it has been operating since 1875 for the first 6 miles (9.7km) of construction, it was not clear for what function it served and if Johor Bahru had a proper station standing here until 1889 when the railway was reported defunct.[4]
Old FMSR era station
Former Johor Bahru railway station opened in 1909, now turned into the KTM Museum, but never open to the public.
The former Johor Bahru railway station under Johore State Railway was opened in 1909 in conjunction with the completion of the final West Coast main link (which will later form the KTM West Coast Line) sector from Gemas to Johor Bahru after a 5-year construction period starting in 1904. As there weas no land access to Singapore yet at that time, Johor Bahru used to be the southernmost terminus for Federated Malay States Railways (FMSR) trains on the Malay Peninsula. However, the FMSR had been running combined train-and-ferry services between both the peninsular railway network and the then-Singapore Government Railways network.[5] Both the Johore Government Railways and Singapore Government Railways were integrated under FMSR administration on 1912.[6]
The station is able to serve services from linked FMSR railways of Malaya especially from the West Coast states up to Penang, and to Pahang on the east. As the FMSR network gradually spread, the old railway station was served by trains to and from Kedah, Perlis and Kelantan as well. It later able to serve trains up to Bangkok when the FMSR network connected to State Railway of Thailand (SRT) network via Padang Besar in 1918, and with the completion of the East Coast sector to Gua Musang in 1931, the East Coast link (which will later form the KTM East Coast Line) was connected to the SRT via Su-ngai Kolok.[7]
After the Johor–Singapore Causeway was completed in 1923, trains were able to travel across the Johor Strait and southwards to Tank Road in Singapore. The trains would later terminate at Tanjong Pagar on Keppel Road after its opening in 1932. Johor Bahru has since become one of the main stations of the rail network serving express and mail trains of the railway services especially between the town and Singapore.[citation needed]
The station would again become the southern terminus of the FMSR train network when the Japanese occupation of Singapore strikes in 1942 forced the British to blow up the Causeway in order to slow down the Imperial Japanese Army's entry into Singapore, severing the only train connection to Singapore. The connection was restored in 1946 after British control was reinstated in both states. Tanjong Pagar would continue to be the FMSR West Coast Line's southern terminus until 2011. In 1948, Johor Bahru station came under the newly-formed Malayan Railways and later after independence, Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM).[citation needed]
As politics changed the state of the regions which ultimately made Singapore and Malaya, later Malaysia, two different countries, Johor Bahru station became part of the international border between the two nations. However, local and express trains remained running uninterrupted between the two countries with the station maintaining its position as an important stop for trains. For a while in the 1980s, it also serve Railbus service between Kulai and Singapore.
Different from the road entries of the Causeway, Johor Bahru station, which facilitated railway entries between the two countries, did not really have any immigration and customs clearance facilities for several decades, despite the first border control regulations between the countries were set up in 1967, as immigration and customs clearance were settled in Tanjong Pagar station. However, after the signing of the Malaysia–Singapore Points of Agreement of 1990 by Malaysia and Singapore, disputes about the agreement and border controls rose, forcing the station to provide an immigration and customs clearance for Singapore-bound trains while the immigration and customs clearance for Malaysia-bound trains remained in Tanjong Pagar station.[8] This practice remained even after the opening of the new Johor Bahru Sentral station. Johor Bahru Sentral eventually replaced the old Johor Bahru station, taking on the latter's immigration and customs clearance responsibilities for southbound trains. The old station closed on 21 October 2010, with proposed plans to turn it into a railway museum.
Johor Bahru Sentral
Johor Bahru Sentral is one of the facilities of Malaysia's Southern Integrated Gateway which aims to provide an integrated entry hub for vehicles from Singapore to enter Malaysia via Johor Bahru, alongside the new Sultan Iskandar Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) complex and plans for a new bridge to replace the Johor-Singapore Causeway. While plans for the bridge were cancelled indefinitely, the new CIQ complex opened in 2008 for vehicular access. The whole project costed RM2.5 billion.
Train services at Johor Bahru Sentral began on 21 October 2010, with Ibrahim Ismail of Johor officiating the opening ceremony. The station has since taken over the role as the main railway station of Johor Bahru. Following the closure of Tanjong Pagar station on 1 July 2011, Malaysia's and Singapore's immigration and customs clearance for northbound trains were moved and have since been operating from the Woodlands Train Checkpoint, becoming the new southern terminus of KTM's West Coast Line. The Woodlands Train Checkpoint also houses Singapore's immigration and customs clearance for southbound trains, while Malaysia's counterpart has since been operating from Johor Bahru Sentral until this day.
Although major KTM Intercity trains stopped here in the early years of its opening, the station later saw a sharp decrease in passengers causing many of the major West Coast services to be reduced and later terminated in 2016. These services would later be replaced by KTM ETS services. Up until 31st December 2025, only three trips of the former Ekspres Selatan up Gemas and one trip of the Ekspres Rakyat Timuran to Tumpat in Kelantan were serving this station. Cross-border services, which has since been branded as Shuttle Tebrau, runs exclusively between Johor Bahru Sentral and the Woodlands Train Checkpoint, with 18 Woodlands-bound trips and 13 Johor Bahru-bound trips.
The COVID-19 pandemic also affected services, with some services being temporarily suspended, but were gradually restored by 2022. Between January and June 2022, the station was closed as part of Gemas-Johor Bahru electrification and double tracking project (EDTP), the final phase of the electrification and double tracking of the West Coast Line. During this time, Shuttle Tebrau services were temporarily suspended. The station reopened in mid-June 2022 with the resumption of the Shuttle Tebrau service, and both the Ekspres Selatan and Ekspres Rakyat Timuran returned in July 2022. The EDTP was officially completed and KTM ETS services were officially extended to Johor Bahru Sentral on 12 December 2025, becoming the new southern terminus of the KTM ETS network.[9][10] On 1 January 2026, KTM Intercity's Ekspres Selatan service to Gemas was officially terminated, to make way for more KTM ETS services. The Shuttle Tebrau service will also be terminated in the future, following the projected completion of the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System in 2028. This will mark KTM's complete withdrawal from Singapore.
Station components
Concourse area (second floor)
The concourse area is a major thoroughfare for pedestrians due to walkways linking it with both the Sultan Iskandar CIQ complex and the shopping centres on the other side of Jalan Tun Abdul Razak. As such, it contains a tourist information centre, various convenience stores, phone shops, souvenir shops, a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and some smaller eateries alongside the waiting area and ticket vending machines for the KTM trains.
Concourse area of JB Sentral Station and retail shops siding the drop-off point and linkbridge to Sultan Iskandar Building and R&F Mall.
Drop-off point, with the entrance of Link bridge to R&F Mall in the background.
Passenger and platform areas (first and ground floor)
These two floors are for KTM passengers only; tickets are checked on the second floor before admittance. The first floor is split between a waiting area for KTM Intercity Ekspres Rakyat Timuran and KTM ETS passengers (entering from Gate B), and a Malaysian customs and immigration clearance area for Shuttle Tebrau passengers (entering from Gate A).
The station has 6 platforms in a 3 island-platform formation, but only 4 platforms are in use. Platforms 1 and 2 serve Ekspres Rakyat Timuran and KTM ETS trains while Platforms 3 and 4 serve the Shuttle Tebrau.[11]
Bus and taxi hubs (ground floor, outside building)
A local bus terminal serving the city area is located on the Jalan Jim Quee-side of the station building. Buses to Kulai, Gelang Patah, Pasir Gudang, Kota Tinggi, Larkin Sentral and the Senai International Airport all call at this terminal. Three Singapore-based cross-border services (160, 170X, 950) also call at this terminal before returning to Singapore. They generally carry few passengers between the CIQ complex and the bus terminal due to both places being a short walk from each other.[12]
Local public buses in Johor Bahru currently accept cashless payments such as Visa card, NFC payment using smartphones or smartwatchs, and QR code payments, making it the first Malaysian city to support contactless payment using smart devices on an urban bus network.[13][14]
Taxi stands are also available from both sides of the station entrances, but cross-border taxis are only limited to the Jalan Tun Razak side.
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JB Sentral
Keretapi Tanah Melayu 
