City to accept advise on busway

City to accept advise on busway

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Jakarta administration said it would use suggestions offered
by experts from the New York-based Institute for Transportation
and Development Policy (ITDP) to improve the busway service.

"We take the suggestions they gave us seriously ... some will
be applied to our new busway corridors," Deputy Governor Fauzi
Bowo said over the weekend.

He said extra doors would be added to the buses and shelters
of the busway in order to cut down on the boarding time and the
buses' stopping time.

Fauzi said the busway operator also would begin the trial run
of an articulated bus on the Blok M-Kota busway corridor as part
of efforts to boost the capacity of the system.

"An articulated bus is ready and the TransJakarta busway
management is preparing a test run," he said.

He said the administration realized articulated buses were
needed in order to accommodate more passengers on future busway
corridors.

Adding second doors to every bus and shelter along the busway
corridors and operating articulated buses were among the
recommendations made by the ITDP during a meeting with Fauzi last
Wednesday.

According to the ITDP's projections, adding additional doors
would significantly shorten the current boarding time of 45
seconds to 22 seconds, in turn increasing the capacity of the
buses to 6,000 passengers per hour per direction from the current
2,700 passengers per hour per direction.

The institute, which also provided technical assistance for
the TransMilenio busway project in Bogota, Columbia, which
Jakarta has tried to emulate, also recommended the use of
articulated buses to further increase the capacity of the buses
to 9,600 passengers per hour per direction.

ITDP executive director Walter Hook also faulted the city
administration's failure to integrate the Senen railway station
in Central Jakarta into the busway system, saying that failure
would cause the system to lose between 20,000 and 25,000
passengers per day.

Commenting on the criticism, Fauzi said the administration
would integrate the railway station into the busway system after
it finished renovating the Senen area.

The administration plans to complete construction this year of
two new busway corridors connecting Pulogadung in East Jakarta
and Harmoni in Central Jakarta, and Harmoni and Kalideres in West
Jakarta.

The administration began operating the first busway route in
January last year, connecting Blok M in South Jakarta with Kota
in West Jakarta.

City Transportation Agency head Rustam Effendy Sidabutar said
the administration would complete the new busway routes by the
end of December.

"At least 29 public bus routes with 302 buses will be affected
by the new busway routes," Rustam said.

He said buses whose routes overlapped the busway corridors by
at least 50 percent would be scrapped, but the operators would be
given the opportunity to join the consortium operating the new
corridors or to move their armada to other routes.

New Busway Corridors

Pulogadung-Harmoni Kalideres-Harmoni

Length 18 kilometers 15 kilometers

Shelters 46 shelters 22 shelters

Pedestrian Bridges 26 bridges 18 bridges

Buses 107 buses 80 buses

Source: City Transportation Agency