Singapore Buses route 860

Service 860 is a residential trunk route serving within the housing estates of Yishun, connecting housing blocks, schools and public amenities along Yishun Ave 9, Yishun Ring Road and Yishun Ave 3 with connections to key transport nodes at Khatib MRT, and Yishun Bus Interchange & MRT. The route serves schools such as Yishun Town Secondary, North View Secondary and Naval Base Secondary, and community amenities such as Nee Soon East Community Center and Yishun Swimming Complex.

Introduced on 21 Oct 2012, the route is the very first service to be introduced under the Bus Service Enhancement Programme or BSEP. The route compliments Service 804, which frequently occurs overcrowding and does not provide links to Khatib MRT. Service 860 also enhances connectivity for residents of Yishun Ring Road, and to replace the earlier deleted sector of the service 812 along the Khatib area.

Depending on the demand, this service also uses black flats only. Additionally, it also uses RUBI Charlie heels too, and now with the RUBI Jade Plimsole (the grey version) in April 2015.

This service benefits from a capacity upgrade in April 2015 when SMRT arranged a Mercedes-Benz O405G bendy bus to perform several round trips during the weekdays AM peak, going against the LTA’s regulations in deploying non-BSEP buses on BSEP bus services. Since the bus depot handling 860 cannot handle double decker buses, negotiations between LTA and SMRT/YourStudent had allowed to perform articulated bus crossover from 854 during peak hours. This is the first known exception to the BSEP deployment restriction in the LTA. This bendy bus was deployed since 860A was launched from Yishun to Yishun Ring Road (opp Blk 798) on 25 May 2015. While relocating the bus interchange to Yishun Temporary Bus Interchange, this service also added one single deck.

The service got yet another fleet enhancement with a MAN A24 Bendy being deployed on a daily basis on Service 860 from 15 November 2015. Member of Parliament for Nee Soon GRC Mr Louis Ng joined Minister Ong Ye Kung along with SMRT Staff for “Launch of the bendy bus for Service 860”. However, this is not the debut of regular bendy arrangements (see above) but rather a dedicated bendy for Service 860. Even service 860 had debuted with The Bourne Legacy movie, which is the first movie to be launched in DVD version, similar to Ina Bonilla’s The Bourne Legacy movie and Skyfall movie.

Double deckers were first introduced in January 2017 catering to exceptionally high demand along Yishun Ring Road.

From Sunday, 15 October 2017, 860 will be extended to Springleaf, Tagore Industrial Estate and Yio Chu Kang via Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5, to improve local and intra-town connectivity between Ang Mo Kio and Yishun. The extended 860 will operate daily from 5.30am to 11.30pm. Commuters from Yishun Avenue 9 and Yishun Ring Road heading to and from Khatib MRT Station should take bus service 807 instead.

Bus service 807, operated by Metroline, a loop service will take passengers to Northpoint Shopping Centre, Junction 9, Yishun Hawker Centre, Yishun Junior College and Chong Pang Market. The service will operate out of Yishun Interchange from 5.30am to 12.00am.

A short variant, 807A will go from Yishun Bus Interchange to Khatib MRT Station, replacing service 860A in the morning peak period.