A striking message

By going on strike this week, the drivers of public transit vans, known as mikrolet, in West Jakarta and East Jakarta, inflicted pain on no one but themselves. They lost one or two days' income, and one or two who ignored the strike call lost their vans because they were smashed by fellow drivers. Commuters who rely on mikrolet were certainly inconvenienced by the drivers' action, but thanks to the police, who deployed trucks, everyone was able to get home. Like most other strikes, at the end of the day, the biggest losers were the strikers themselves.

The striking drivers have made their point which the Jakarta public transportation authority, DLLAJ, cannot afford to ignore, lest the situation becomes even uglier than it already is.

Their chief complaint is over DLLAJ's decision to allow new operators to ply existing routes, or open new routes that indirectly put them into competition. Either way, their businesses are affected. At a time when free-for-all competition seems to be the trend, it would be too simplistic to dismiss their complaint as an attempt to keep out new competitors for the sake of greater profit.

Considering the city's public transportation is run mostly by small private operators, rather than a single state-owned monopolistic entity like in some metropolitan areas, these operators perform another important role in the city's economy besides offering vital services to the public. They provide jobs and income to the drivers and their families.

Recognition of this second role makes DLLAJ's task in running the public transport system a clear, albeit complex, one. It has to tread between meeting the public's need for an efficient and affordable means of public transportation, and ensuring the viability of small operators. Licensing new routes and operators, while seeming the obvious choice given the continued growing public demand, could, as this week's incident showed, lead to unrest. There is also much to be said for the complaints by other motorists who have to share the city's limited roads: namely that in some areas, the streets are already jammed by too many mikrolet.

The pressures on mikrolet drivers and owners are already strong. Fares and routes are controlled by the government. They have had to pay a lot of money for the necessary permits, including the right to operate on designated routes. One could understand why they became angry at the unwelcomed additional competition.

These strikes showed there was a communication breakdown between the operators and the authority. DLLAJ should have consulted existing operators before licensing new routes or allowing more operators to ply the same routes. Judging by the violent response this past week, one could conclude that there was no public consultation in the first place. Either that or the association of public transport operators, Organda, has failed to represent the interests of its members.

Greater transparency concerning the city's public transportation policy and future plans would also help operators anticipate their future business prospects and therefore plan better to meet future competition.

With Jakarta's plan to build a mass rapid transit system gathering steam, better communication and greater transparency are imperative to the efficient running of the city's public transportation. Depending on what road DLLAJ takes, this week's strikes by mikrolet drivers could be the first in a series of disruptive actions, or they could be the last.