Extra buses allowed for Idul Fitri holiday

Extra buses allowed for Idul Fitri holiday

JAKARTA (JP): The directorate general of land transportation has agreed to allow bus transportation companies to operate extra buses during the upcoming Idul Fitri celebration.

According to Director General Soejono, the additional buses are allowed to pick up passengers at certain places without having to go to the terminals.

"We have arranged a number of reserve bus terminals but if there are a great number of passengers at a certain place, buses can pick them up without having to go to the terminals," Soejono said on Thursday.

"Under such a system, bus transportation firms won't have additional transportation costs. It will also ease the flow of traffic in the city," he said.

"It's effective, efficient and economical," Soejono said.

He said the only thing the bus companies will have to do is coordinate the buses schedules and file the schedules with officers at Soejono's office.

According to the estimated figures provided by local authorities, a total of about two million from the over 10 million Jakarta population will leave the city to celebrate the Moslem Idul Fitri festivities, which this year probably will fall on March 3 and 4.

The Idul Fitri holidays may attract many Jakarta residents to leave the city as March 5 is a Sunday.

As was reported earlier, the City Land Transportation Agency will deploy over 7,000 buses in a 16-day operation in anticipation of the "explosion" in the number of passengers during and after the holidays.

The operation will begin on Feb. 24 and last through March 11.

"I predict that the number of homebound travelers will be 10 percent higher than last year," said head of the agency, J.P. Sepang.

Last year there were about 1.49 million homebound travelers who used public transportation at Idul Fitri.

"Two days before Idul Fitri will be the peak of the exodus," he said, predicting that a total of 158,301 people will leave the city on that day alone. (bsr)