Efficient transportation means cleaner air

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

There are numerous campaigns to get Jakartans to take part in dealing with the city's air pollution. There is the Blue Sky campaign or the My Fresh Jakarta. Still, Jakarta continues to rank among the world's dirtiest cities in terms of air pollution.

Clean air programs have also been introduced by the government, the Jakarta administration and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). But those programs have failed to significantly reduce air pollution -- the air has not become fresher or cleaner, nor the sky bluer.

On the contrary, data from the City Environment Management Board (BPLHD) shows that the quality of Jakarta's air has gotten worse in recent years.

A refreshing move in the clean air campaign took place in 2001 when lead-free gasoline was supplied to all the gas stations in Greater Jakarta, and people proudly began to show off "meeting emission standards" stickers on their vehicles.

Despite the few successes, hazardous substances like particulate molecular (PM), or dust particles with a diameter measuring less than 10 microns, carbon dioxide (CO), hydrocarbon (HC), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are still polluting the air.

According to health experts, HC and NO2 can cause lung cancer and respiratory infections; CO and NO2 can cause heart problems; while PM can cause cancer, bronchitis and respiratory problems.

Reports by environmental organization Mitra Emisi Bersih (Clean Air Partner) say the health costs of Jakarta's polluted air reached some Rp 1.79 trillion in 1998. It was estimated this figure would be three times higher by 2015.

According to a report in 2003 by the World Bank's Jakarta office, inflammation of the respiratory tract was the sixth leading cause of death in the country, accounting for 6.2 percent of all deaths in Indonesia. For Jakarta, it accounts for 12.6 percent of all deaths.

What's wrong with the current clean air campaigns? They seem to be based on the correct assumption: vehicle emissions are the main source of urban air pollution, as some 65 percent of dangerous substances come from the vehicle exhaust.

Analysts have noted two weaknesses in clean air campaigns that only target cleaning up vehicle exhaust emissions -- legal constraints and acute corruption in the bureaucracy.

Based on Law No. 14/1992 on traffic and land transportation, the city authorities can only force public vehicles to comply with emission standard.

The regulation is weak, considering that of the city's 4.97 million vehicles, some 1.5 million are private cars, 2.79 million motorcycles and only some 315,000 are public vehicles.

So according to the law, legally the city administration can only control the emissions of some 315,000 public vehicles, while the rest of the vehicles are free to spray hazardous substances into the air.

The Jakarta governor earlier tried to impose vehicle emission standards on private vehicles by issuing Decree No. 95/2000, but it was not effective. What is needed, according to the experts, is a bylaw jointly issued by the governor and the City Council.

Another problem is corrupt officials who fail to use their authority to force public vehicles to comply with emission standards, although emission tests are one of the requirements for roadworthy certificates. Reportedly, owners of public vehicles only have to bribe the right officials to get a certificate, without having to bother with the tests.

Transportation expert Jack Sumabrata of Pelangi, a green organization that monitors global warming and air pollution, said clean air campaigns should be linked to comprehensive efforts to resolve transportation problems.

Ahmad "Puput" Safrudin, a clean air campaigner from the Joint Committee for Leaded Gasoline Phase-out (KPBB), agreed, insisting that good traffic management was the key to cutting air pollution in the city.

Puput said there were two main reasons why poor traffic management worsened air pollution. First, vehicles trapped in traffic congestions release more hazardous emission. Second, too many vehicles on the streets release more pollutants into the air.

"Cutting the number of vehicles, particularly private cars, on the streets must become a priority for the policymakers," Puput told The Jakarta Post recently.

This is important, he said, because the majority of roads in the city are jammed with private cars with a small number of passengers in them.

"The road section needed for each passenger on a city bus is only 0.75 square meters, while each private car passenger needs 3.3 square meters," Jack said, which means some 88 percent of the 7,563 kilometers of city roads are used by private cars and motorcycles.

He also encouraged people to leave their vehicles at home and take public transportation.

But people will ignore this suggestion unless the city administration improves the quality of public transportation services.

"How can upper or middle-class employees be encouraged to use public transportation when the administration fails to encourage transportation operators to improve the quality of their services," said Azas Tigor Nainggolan, chairman of the Jakarta Residents Forum (Fakta).

Given the poor quality of public transportation, Jack urged the administration to go ahead with the development of a mass rapid transit (MRT) system, either in the form of a subway, monorail train or bus rapid transit (BRT), or busway.

The city does, in fact, have a BRT project in development, and hopes that it in fact helps resolve transportation woes here, given the success of similar projects around the world.

Lioyd Wright of the Bogota-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy said earlier a busway in a city could curb the emission of hazardous substances by up to 40 percent along its routes, or corridors.

Unfortunately, the Jakarta administration has not shown a fixed concept for the project, as seen in the continuous revisions -- bus shelters, connecting bridges and also fuel -- although the project is scheduled to be launched in December.

Environmentalists have also expressed concern the 60 buses that will be operated along the busway corridor, connecting Blok M in South Jakarta and Kota in Central Jakarta, do not use fuel gas, which is more environmentally friendly.

Puput also doubted a statement by a city official that the buses would use clean Euro II diesel engines, saying the diesel fuel produced in Indonesia was not compatible with these environmentally friendly engines.

Jack said Jakartans should continuously push the administration to improve the transportation system and services, as this would help solve various problems, including worsening air pollution.

Transportation expert Bambang Susantono of the University of Indonesia stressed that efforts to resolve transportation problems should also take into account the needs of people who live in neighboring cities like Bekasi, Bogor, Depok and Tangerang but work in Jakarta.

Cleaner air would not be the only positive impact of an improved transportation system, but there also would be an improvement in productivity, a reduction in the time needed to get from place to place and safer roads.

Wright said after the busway project was implemented in Bogota, fatal accidents were reduced by up to 93 percent, time efficiency improved by 32 percent, and the satisfaction of passengers rose 88 percent.