Dreams of a busway system vs poor city buses

Edith Hartanto and Yogita Tahilramani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Jakarta administration dreams of constructing a Rp 54 billion busway system, but for some odd reason, the dismal condition of city buses has managed to totally evade the attention of Governor Sutiyoso and city administration officials.

For the lower-income people of Jakarta, who are resigned to accepting the reality of soaring public transportation tariffs due to fuel price increases, a busway system is no solution.

"The money should be used to upgrade city buses, or even buy decent buses. We travel by those buses after all," Anna Tri Hastuti, a resident of Cengkareng who travels daily by bus, said on Tuesday.

The busway project is supposed to come into effect in November this year, a month after the scheduled gubernatorial election which is likely to be won by Sutiyoso again.

The City Council has approved an allocation of Rp 54 billion from the 2002 city budget for a busway project connecting Blok M in South Jakarta with downtown Kota in the west. A city councillor for development affairs, Ali Imran Husein, had earlier claimed that the project would improve public transportation in Jakarta.

The problem is that there are too many cars in Jakarta, which itself only has 6,500 kilometers of road. About four million cars and motorbikes ply the streets.

Questions surrounding the busway system include the problem of how commuters are supposed to get to Blok M to catch a bus, since they are not supposed to drive their own cars there because of a lack of parking spaces.

Deputy Chief of the Land Transportation Owner Association (Organda) Putu W. Antara slammed the busway program, saying the administration was foolish to consider spending exorbitantly on a "questionable idea," when it should concentrate on problems with the bus system in Jakarta.

"Some of our buses are more than 20-years old. The buses need spare parts which are extremely expensive ... it's better to fix the buses before jumping to another crazy project," Putu said.

Jakarta has 5,411 large buses, 4,981 medium-sized buses and 11,848 minivans. Only 68 percent of the total number of buses currently operate as the rest remain in a poor condition.

The operational buses have been used for about six to nine years, and are repaired with old tires and non-original vehicle parts. "At least 55 percent of monthly revenue from each bus is consumed by operational costs," Putu said.

Transportation experts have stressed however that the administration's plan to implement a busway system should first be preceded by a review of the whole transport system, including the pricing, schedule and the efficiency of the whole bus system.

One glaring example is the mismanagement of the state-owned public bus company PPD. A well-established public bus operator owned by the Ministry of Transportation, it has been in the red for the last 16 years due to mismanagement.

Burdened with an oversized workforce of 6,000, it has had to provide public transportation. In 2000, PPD suffered a Rp 400 billion loss and is now reliant on government subsidies amounting to Rp 2.3 billion a month to cover its Rp 8 billion monthly expenditure.

Local media reports earlier stated that between September 1998 and October 2000, PPD had actually received more than Rp 200 billion from the national budget and the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas), but the PPD management had "totally failed to manage" the funds for the upgrade of the buses.

The company operates 454 public buses that serve 67 routes in the capital. The fleet consists of 265 regular and express buses and 189 buses that are air-conditioned, while 19 buses are rented from private operators.

PPD has 489 inoperable buses left idle at its 16 bus depots.

Overcrowded buses racing their way along congested streets have long been a part of the capital's landscape, but no solution has been found to rid the capital of this situation.

In these buses, it becomes extremely difficult to get a seat because the driver tries to fill the already overcrowded vehicle with even more people.

Another crucial factor which needs review is the wage system of public transportation, particularly minivans, according to transportation expert D. A. Simarmata, who recently wrote about the matter in this paper.

Wages for public transportation drivers, he said, were generally not based on a fixed monthly salary but on a kind of piece-rate system, except for PPD. The minivan system is mostly owner-operated, and not managed by a company.

Except for the owner-operated buses and the PPD, the driver has to submit an agreed sum of money per day, known as setoran, to the bus company, Simamarta said.

Anything earned over and above that amount is for the bus driver and for other operational expenses. The efficiency of the bus system, Simamarta said, needed substantial improvement.