Economic considerations outweigh safety on trains

Economic considerations outweigh safety on trains

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

An unidentified body was laid down on the floor of Serpong
railway station recently. The body, only covered by newspapers,
was there for hours. It was then taken to a hospital in Tangerang
after nobody claimed it.

The body is only one of dozens of people who are regularly
killed after being electrocuted while sitting on atop trains in
the city.

Strangely, such incidents never discourage people from getting
on the electric train's roof or other dangerous places on the
train. They just ignore notices of danger, which are placed in
all train stations in the city. Such disregard is particularly
evidenced during rush hour when they literally fight each other
for space on the train.

"I am forced to do so. It is already 7 a.m. while I should be
at my office by 7.30 a.m. My boss will fire me if I am late,"
said Harsono, 35, a retail clerk in Central Jakarta.

Harsono, who lives in Serpong, Tangerang, Banten province, was
amid hundreds of passengers, who were forced to sit on the roof
of a commuter train connecting Rangkas Bitung station in Banten
to Kota station in Jakarta on Friday.

During rush hour, train passengers not only try to sit on
roofs, many also have to crowd inside and outside of the cabin of
locomotive drivers, or even stand on the connectors between the
cars.

Sumantri, a resident of Pondok Aren subdistrict in Tangerang,
said safety was an unaffordable luxury on commuter trains. He was
among the hundreds of people in one car, which has a capacity of
around 80 passengers.

"I can understand why they go up on the roofs. They can inhale
fresh air there while in here it is very crowded and everyone is
sweating," said an employee at a private company on Jl. Sudirman
in South Jakarta.

Bianto, an employee of a private company in Slipi, West
Jakarta, who lives in Serpong, said during rush hour that
passengers were facing the worst condition in terms of comfort
and security.

"We cannot even stand on our feet comfortably during that
time. It's so crowded that if we fall asleep we won't fall down
as other people are tightly pressed against us," he said.

According to him such a situation not only was prone to
crimes, such as pickpocketing, but also sexual harassment.

"Can you imagine what happens if, for example, four men stand
pressed together with a beautiful young woman?," he said,
jokingly.

But Sumantri said he had no choice but to continue using the
commuter train as it was the only cheap and relatively fast means
of transportation to go to his office. He said that he could take
the city bus, but it would take him around two hours while a
commuter train was less than an hour.

He said the commuter train was the best transportation
available in the city. As an example, people who live in Serpong
area, only spend Rp 1,500 to reach Kota station in only one hour
15 minutes.

It is even less expensive if they buy monthly tickets which
are only Rp 32,000. While if they take buses, they would spend
around Rp 5,000 and take more than two hours.

"I could not imagine if there was no commuter train. It would
be awful for me to commute by bus. It does not only take much
longer, but its also more expensive and I cannot afford it," said
Jusuf, 43, who lives in Muncul subdistrict, Tangerang.

Jusuf, who works as a civil servant on Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat
in Central Jakarta, said that he could only earn about Rp 1
million per month to support his four children and one wife.

Jusuf, Harsono, and Sumantri expressed the hope that the state
owned railway company of PT Kereta Api Indonesia (PT KAI) would
improve services so that passengers could travel by trains
comfortably.

But their wish seems unlikely to be realized in the near
future as, according to PT KAI's President Director Umar Berto,
there was no way out to resolve the problem in the near future.

He added that some 450,000 people living in Greater Jakarta
use trains as their means of transportation everyday, while PT
KAI's capacity was very limited.

"I know that the commuter train users are not satisfied with
our services. But I don't know when we can manage to serve them
better," Umar told the press recently.