More time, effort required to get a train ticket home

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Faced with mounting criticism for its failure to combat scalpers, PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI), the state-owned railway company, is instituting a new ticketing system that makes it harder for both would-be profiteers and passengers to get a ticket.

Before, passengers at the ticket office on Jl. Djuanda, in Central Jakarta, had to wait in just one line to buy a train ticket, although this often required sleeping there overnight, since the line was so long.

Now, however, people will have to wait in two separate lines.

The ticket office is the only one selling tickets for the executive-class trains which depart from the nearby Gambir railway station.

As before, passengers have to queue seven days prior to departure to get tickets at the counter.

This year, instead, the people will queue twice: First, for the number and once again for a ticket the following day.

"I spent the night here," said Heru, employee of a private company who planned to go to Surabaya, East Java, on Dec. 15.

The man in his 20s arrived at 11 p.m. Thursday to join a queue to get a number at the counter, which opens on 7 a.m.

Accompanied by two friends, Heru passed the night chatting and eating sahur (predawn meal for fasting) with them.

After getting a number on Friday morning, he returned to his rented house in South Jakarta. Early Saturday morning, he queued again for the tickets.

Sugeng, also a private sector employee, spent Friday night in line near the counter by reading a book, and listening to his pocket radio.

He managed to get a number and then queued again for the tickets with he departure date of Dec. 14 -- only to find out that all tickets for Dec. 12, and the next two days, had been completely sold out.

So, he joined yet another queue the following morning for departure on Dec. 15. This time he got three tickets, for his wife, son and himself, to Surakarta, Central Java.

The long line of passengers often became disorderly when the counter opened in the morning, as some fought to be ahead of the others.

The new system is applied to avoid ticket scalpers. In order to get a number, one has to show the ID card. With the number, the ID card owner may buy four tickets at the most.

A number of scalpers, however, were still to be seen in the compound. One of them offered a number for as much as Rp 200,000, but many passengers did not seem to be interested, because getting a number did not guarantee that they would get a ticket.

There are 14 executive trains departing from Gambir railway station, which are expected to carry a total of 250,607 passengers between Dec. 1 until Dec. 15, a 6 percent decrease from the same period last year.