Electric-powered trolley buses were first introduced in Singapore in the late 1920s as a replacement for electric trams. These buses were operated by the Singapore Traction Company (STC), which was formed in 1925 to replace the then defunct Singapore Electric Tramways. Starting from the mid-1930s, STC’s trolley buses began to face stiff competition from motorised buses operated by Chinese bus companies. Despite introducing their own fleet of motorised buses in the 1940s, things only got worse for the beleaguered company when its workers went on what was to be become known as the Great STC Strike in 1955, which lasted 143 days. The company was finally wound up in 1971 and the remaining bus operators merged in 1973 to form the Singapore Bus Service (SBS).
