`Don't expect too much from busway'
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The city administration plans to have the controversial busway project, scheduled for operation later this year, force commuters to leave their vehicles at home, but transportation experts have voiced their pessimism that this aim will be achieved.
Bambang Susantono of the University of Indonesia (UI), citing a survey, said only about 4 percent of motorists were willing to shift to public transportation with service that was of a high quality.
The research was conducted by the Arterial Roads System Demand Study (ARSDS) in 1997 to learn whether private car users would be ready to shift to busway transportation as the government plans to develop the bus rapid transit (BRT) facility.
"Don't expect that there will be a significant shift from private cars to busway transportation as I believe that the figure would not be that different from the results of the study," Bambang told a discussion on the city transportation system on Friday.
The city administration was preparing the 12.9 kilometer-long corridor for the busway, which will serve the route from Blok M in South Jakarta to Kota in Central Jakarta and involve at least 60 buses.
The buses will have air conditioning so passengers will mostly include those who commute to work in private cars.
The shift from the use of private cars to the buses is expected to ease severe traffic congestion across the city.
The latest data from the City Transportation Agency shows that there are some 1.5 million private cars being driven in the capital, while the number of public transportation vehicles is only about 315,000.
Bambang said that despite the busway project, traffic congestion would still plague Jakarta for the next five years. He did not elaborate further.
He called for an intensive campaign to encourage private cars to stay off the city's main thoroughfares when the busway project goes into operation.
Bambang criticized the city administration for not taking initiative in launching a campaign adequately, even though the busway was scheduled to start in the next six months.
Sharing the pessimism that the project would not be able to solve the city's transportation woes was Shayit Soebagio, a former senior officer at the City Transportation Agency's research center, who also took part in the same discussion.
He stressed the need for the city administration to outline a comprehensive transportation concept to use as its main reference in developing the transportation system in the crowded capital.
"Without a comprehensive concept, any programs for the transportation system would be just another trial and error which would not resolve the problem comprehensively," Shayit said.
Bambang said another problem the administration also faced was a lack of a clear concept on the bus feeder system, namely the transportation that brings in passengers from distant locations to the main corridors.
"The high standard of the busway service would not be that attractive if it was not integrated with other facilities with a similar standard," Bambang told The Jakarta Post.
He said there were four requirements that had to be met to develop good public transportation. They are comfort, safety, affordability and reliability.
Bambang said that a good feeder system would guarantee the fulfillment of these four requirements.
Other speakers at Friday's discussion sponsored by Media Indonesia included the head of the transportation system development division at the City Transportation Agency, D. A. Rini, and a member of the City Council's Commission D for development affairs, Tjuk Sudono.