Kopaja cooperative says new fares no help

Kopaja cooperative says new fares no help

JAKARTA (JP): Owners of minibuses claim that the increase in
transportation which was announced by the government early this
month does not benefit them.

Rasmani, an official of the Kopaja minibus cooperative, said
over the weekend that the fare increases are not beneficial to
the cooperative because the bus owners have greatly increased
their rents.

"Most of the drivers refuse to pay the new rental fees
determined by the cooperative, saying they cannot afford it,"
Rasmani said.

Citing an example, he said a driver who should pay Rp 100,000
(US$43.47) per day is only willing to pay Rp 85,000.

Kopaja increased the rental fees the day after the government
announced the increases in public transport fares on April 3.

The new rent ranges from Rp 80,000 per day to Rp 140,000, an
increase from Rp 60,000 to Rp 110,000 per day.

The government raised the fare for minibuses from Rp 300 to Rp
400.

Rasmani said the increase still does not cover operational
costs given the poor condition of most of the minibuses owned by
the cooperative's members.

"There are about 700 minibuses owned by Kopaja's members that
should be repaired. This is one of the factors that hampers our
plan to improve services," he said.

Rasmani said it is difficult for minibus owners to make bigger
profits because they don't own other types of transport vehicles
like Patas (quick and limited) buses.

When asked about the opportunity offered by the city
administration to operate 50 bigger capacity buses as Patas
buses, Rahmani said the cooperative is willing to accept the
offer if the city revokes the requirement to scrap two minibuses
for one big bus.

"We'd have to scrap 100 minibuses for the 50 buses. We can't
do that because we would lose the billions of rupiah which has
been invested in those minibuses," he said.

Last year the city administration decided to give minibus
owners the opportunity to buy 100 bigger capacity buses to be
operated as Patas buses, but they would have to scrap 200
minibuses if they accepted the offer.(yns)