No gas-powered buses stall busway project expansion
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.