No gas-powered buses stall busway project expansion
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
The new busway routes are unlikely to start operations by the year-end deadline because the Jakarta administration has yet to start constructing the compressed natural gas (CNG) stations for the buses.
"I have the impression that the relevant city officials have failed to accomplish their tasks on time ... I know that there is a lot of work to do, which is still incomplete," Jakarta Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo told The Jakarta Post at City Hall after Friday prayers.
Fauzi slammed the officials in charge, calling them incompetent and unable to work to schedule.
"What a waste. We had even sent them to study at higher education institutes. Unfortunately, they have failed to perform."
Assistant to the city secretary for development affairs Hari Sandjojo said the administration had not yet appointed any private companies to help finance the construction of the CNG network.
"So far, we are still selecting the companies, who are interested in investing in the CNG supplies," Hari told the Post.
Four private companies have expressed interest in building gas networks connecting the city's existing CNG pipeline to the two planned CNG stations on Jl. Perintis Kemerdekaan in North Jakarta and at Rawabuaya, West Jakarta. The two CNG stations will cater for 200 buses on routes linking Pulogadung in East Jakarta to Harmoni in Central Jakarta and from Harmoni to Kalideres in West Jakarta.
Earlier in April this year, the administration, state oil and gas company PT Pertamina and gas distributor PT PGN signed a memorandum of understanding to supply CNG to the busway, as part of efforts to gradually replace high emission-vehicles using gasoline with CNG-powered ones, which have lower emissions.
The MOU is also a follow-up of the plan to require all public transportation vehicles to use CNG in order to reduce air pollution in Jakarta --the world's third-most polluted city after Mexico City and Bangkok, in line with the implementation of Bylaw No. 2/2005 on air pollution control endorsed in February.
Meanwhile, Jakarta Transportation Agency head Rustam Effendy Sidabutar revealed that a consortium of local companies in charge of procuring the buses, was currently ordering chassis from a private company in South Korea.
"It has ordered for the first round, 71 chassis out of the planned 200 for the buses. Those chassis will be reassembled at the New Armada workshop in Magelang, Central Java," Rustam said.