Jakarta holidaymakers trickle back slowly

Tony Hotland The Jakarta Post Jakarta

Tias, 42, dragged his luggage, some bags and a few cardboard boxes, toward the front of the Senen railway station, East Jakarta. He had just arrived in the city after celebrating Idul Fitri with his parents in Tegal, Central Java.

Tias was one of around 6,000 passengers arriving at the station on Thursday. One conspicuously crowded train, the Kertajaya train, unloaded 925 passengers.

"The situation today is still controllable. There is not yet a high jump in returning passengers," said the station's deputy head, Supranoto.

He added that the holidaymakers were likely to return on Saturday and Sunday, since most office workers in the city would resume work on Monday next week.

Almost all of the arriving trains were late by one hour on average. Supranoto blamed disorderly boarding processes and the heavy flow of returning passengers.

However, a Matarmaja train, scheduled to arrive from Malang at 6:30 a.m, had not yet arrived at midday on Thursday.

"The train derailed in Semarang last night (Wednesday), but there were no fatalities," said Zainal Abidin, spokesman of state-owned railway company PT KAI.

Little more than 2,000 passengers were onboard 65 buses arriving at Pulo Gadung bus terminal in East Jakarta on Thursday. Last year, most holidaymakers had arrived at the terminal five days to seven days after the holiday, when some 50,000 passengers had returned on almost a thousand buses.

The head of the terminal, Pardjiman, said that the buses which had arrived in Jakarta would return straight away to their departure points in a bid to accommodate the returning Jakartans.

Heads of stations and terminals predicted the inflow of passengers to peak three days to four days after the Idul Fitri celebrations.

Although the holiday is over, people are still buying bus and train tickets to their hometowns.

The Pulo Gadung bus terminal dispatched 168 buses on Thursday, with some 5,144 passengers mostly destined for areas in Java, such as Cirebon in West Java and Pekalongan in Central Java. As many as 4,500 passengers departed from Senen railway station

Meanwhile, Jakarta's main streets -- such as Jl. Sudirman, Jl. Gatot Subroto and Jl. MH Thamrin, all in Central Jakarta -- were still quiet a day after the holiday.

Streets normally prone to traffic congestion, such as Jl. Fatmawati, Jl. Pondok Indah, Lebak Bulus, and Ciputat, all in South Jakarta also enjoyed light traffic.