Governor speaks on permits for public transit vehicles

JP/3/ORGANDA

Governor speaks on permits for public transit vehicles

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration announced that they will only issue operating licenses to privately-run public transportation companies which are either limited liability companies (Ltd.) or cooperatives.

"Proprietary transportation companies will not be tolerated," Governor Surjadi Soedirdja yesterday warned public transportation operators to heed the 1991 gubernatorial decree on the rules of operating wide-bodied, medium-sized and small-bodied buses in Jakarta.

Governor Surjadi made the remarks yesterday at City Hall after witnessing the signing of cooperation agreements between The City Land Transportation Organization (Organda) and the Trisakti Transportation Management School, the Administrator of the Tanjung Priok Port, the Association of Indonesian Importers (GINSI), the Association of Indonesian Exporters (GPEI) and the Association of Indonesian Containers Transportation Agencies (GAPEKSI).

To illustrate his argument, Surjadi mentioned owners of the President Taxi who only use the name "President Taxi Ltd." to legalize their operation but do not really run a limited liability company.

Instead of submitting the company's problems to the management and obeying the company's rules, they took the handling of the problems in their own hands and were at odds with each other. As a result, the company became torn with quarrels, Surjadi said.

Asked by the governor to add his own explanations, Tb. Rais, the deputy governor for economic development, said that many take advantage of their "limited company" or "cooperative" status but do not really operate their companies accordingly.

This became apparent because it was the owners, not their companies, who usually complained when the city administration introduced changes of routes, Rais said. He added that, again, it was owners and not the management who dealt directly with drivers.

In his speech, Surjadi also said the city administration had been encouraging the use of public transportation rather than private transportation vehicles, with the aim of eventually developing a mass rapid transport system to serve the majority of the population.

"Public transportation means we should gradually phase-out the use of private vehicles," Surjadi said.

However, Surjadi acknowledged that this would be a long way off because Indonesians still preferred private cars to public transportation vehicles -- apparently because of their prestige and perhaps because they were not willing to wait "fifty more years" to have the current public transportation services improved.

"This puts the administration in an awkward position," Surjadi said. "While the government wants to ease the city's alarming traffic density, it also wants to develop the automotive industry by encouraging the use of private vehicles."

Organda

On the occasion, Aip Sjaifuddin, the head of the City Land Transportation Owners' Organization (Organda), announced that as of next month, Organda will take action against drivers who run their buses with doors open, drivers who do not wear uniforms or do not possess driver identification cards.

M. Hutabarat, a unit head of Organda in charge of small- bodied vehicles such as Bemo, Bajaj, Mikrolet and Angkutan Pinggir Kota (Angkot), asked Organda to suspend the traffic dragnet until June because his unit was not yet ready to supply the drivers with uniforms and identity cards. Aip concurred.

In discussing efforts at consolidation among public transportation vehicles, Aip said that, so far, it was only taxi companies who had made an agreement among themselves not to employ drivers who had been fired by any one of them.

"We will also apply this regulation to bus companies," Aip said.

Isak Achmad Rohmaidi, the unit head of Organda in charge of taxis, asked for a raise in taxi fares due to escalating overhead. He drew attention to the fact that the prices of natural gas have been raised twice since the last rate hike.

Surjadi replied that the city administration would consider the increase only if the taxi companies were about to go bankrupt.(06)