City bus fares to rise between 10% and 20%

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Owing to the rising costs of fuel and spare parts, the city administration has said that it will soon increase city bus fares by between 10 and 20 percent.

Administration officials will announce formal implementation of the increase "in the next two weeks," said Putu Wirta Antara, Jakarta deputy chair of the Land Transportation Owners Association (Organda) after meeting Governor Sutiyoso at City Hall on Friday.

Putu, who is also chairman of the Jakarta Transportation Bus Cooperative (Kopaja), said that fares for medium buses would be increased from Rp 900 to Rp 1,000, while for larger buses, fares would rise from Rp 1,000 to Rp 1,200.

During Putu's meeting with the governor, however, fares for air-conditioned buses and taxi meters were ruled out from being part of a possible hike.

The governor's plan to increase bus fares comes despite the fact that Organda had recommended that there be no fare hike if the fuel price increase was below 30 percent.

The government recently announced that fuel price would increase by an average of 22 percent meaning that, in effect, the bus fares should not be affected.

On Monday, Sutiyoso claimed that the fare hike was necessary to accommodate the rise in fuel prices. But Organda chairman Aip Syaifuddin countered that his organization would not endorse the fare rise.

Aip said the fuel price only contributed to 4 percent of the overall operational costs for city buses.

But on Friday, when asked why Organda finally supported the fare hike, he said that increases in current prices for spare parts -- such as tires and filter oil -- have already reached between 15 and 20 percent.

"On Monday, there was no hike in prices for spare parts. But they have been increased -- I don't know why. You can ask the tire producers," Aip said testily.

He added that prices for spare parts contributed to a full 30 percent of the operational costs of city buses.

The planned increase of between Rp 100 and Rp 200 is probably meaningless for some people.

But for common people, it will be considerable. Overall, their transportation costs will jump significantly, as many people must take two or three different buses from their homes just to get to their place of work.

Asked whether the bus operators would increase their public service if fares were went up, Aip said, "if we want good service, the fares should be far higher than the current ones."

However, City Transportation Agency head Rustam Effendy played down the likelihood of a bus fare increase. "Right now, we have yet to think about it," Rustam told reporters.

But he said his office and Organda were ready to calculate a proper fare increase due to the increase of the fuel prices.

He would not say when his office would complete this calculation.

According to officials, the city presently owns about 10,000 buses, although only 68 percent of them are operational: the rest have fallen into disrepair -- either from use, or just plain old age.