Bus Rapid Transit in Jakarta: Evaluating the Factors that Impede or Facilitate

Chapter IV.6
Discussion Paper

Jakarta, Indonesian capital with population of around 7.5 millions (Statistics Jakarta, 2004) is striving with transport and environmental problems. World Bank ranked Jakarta as the third most polluted city, not to mention the serious congestion takes place everyday. The dominating private motorcars including motorcycles is evident. Road public transport share is estimated 38% (Sutomo, 2001). Urban rail share is even small at under 1% (Jakarta Land Use Department, 2001)

Public transport in Jakarta relies heavily on bus services. There are various bus sizes in operation ranging from 9-seater up to 50-seater. But, generally the bus service is very poor in quality running on old buses. A limited number of air-conditioned services are available in some main routes. Most buses operated by private companies without a clear service quality standard in place. Security, safety and naturally comfort are far from
adequate. Buses compete for passengers creating a dangerous traffic operation and overcrowding is common. Fare was set at Rp 1300 (US$ 14c) for regular and Rp 3300 (US$ 35c) for air-conditioned service flat at all distances. After a big increase of petrol price in November 2005 the fare was adjusted to USD 22c and USD 38c. Buses don’t run on schedule and there is no fare or route integration. After the economic crisis, situation became even worse because the revenue could not cope with the increasing cost of operation especially the cost of spare parts. Bus availability fell down very seriously to only around 60% and bus renewal simply did not work.

A new bus system is still being developed trying to eliminate the drawbacks of the current system. The buy the service scheme will be adopted where buses will operate in a specified quantity and quality of service. They will be paid on kilometerage basis. The buses operate on what so called busway scheme, where buses will occupy median lane with bus stops located in the median of the road. Access to bus stops is by means of the existing pedestrian bridges or signalized pelicans. A demonstration project was launched in a 13-km main line of Blok M-Kota, the main CBD corridor of Jakarta in January 2004.

The paper will describe the system in more detail and evaluate the factors that impede or facilitate the development of the busway system. Operation and management systems will be discussed along with financial calculation. The project is now facing an organizational problem although funding is already secured. International assistance was another key factor to assure the success of the busway project, especially on the application of the 13-km demonstration project. In the late 1980’s, the bus lanes commencing are seriously violated and severe congestion resulted. Such failure has brought a serious impact on the future role of bus service for Jakarta. The notion of the poor public transport will never be able to be resolved is growing among the member of public and the politician.

Another important note to be considered in this paper is, if we talk about Jakarta, we can not separate the city with its surrounding agglomeration area covering Bogor City, Depok City, Tangerang Regency and Bekasi Regency. Many information and data in this report will refer to the condition of Jakarta alone and with the agglomeration of the city. This agglomeration usually called as JABODETABEK (or JAkarta, BOgor, DEpok, TAngerang and BEKasi) or BODETABEK (BOgor, DEpok, TAngerang and BEKasi).

Author:
Heru Sutomo
Fajar Saumatmaji
Restu Novitarini Djarwoningrum
Date: