Governor speaks on permits for public transit vehicles

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)