Only 14% of busway passengers used to drive: Study

Bambang Nurbianto The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Seven months after its launch on Jan. 15, the busway has only managed to attract around 5,600 private car owners, or 14 percent of the busway's 40,000 daily commuters.

The figure was revealed recently in a study held by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in March.

The study shows that around 79 percent of the busway passengers are former bus passengers, the routes of which had to be closed following the operation of the busway.

From the 79 percent, or around 31,600 people, some 11,060 are former passengers of non air-conditioned buses, followed by around 10,110 former passengers of air-conditioned buses and 1,890 former motorcyclists. Another 1,580 formerly used taxis and 316 passengers transferred from bajaj (three-wheeled motorized vehicle) and commuter trains.

TransJakarta Busway Management infrastructure division head Taufik Adiwianto said that having only one corridor from Blok M, South Jakarta, to Kota, West Jakarta, was not enough to serve the public and therefore could not significantly reduce the number of private cars.

In the end, those factors only increase congestion as the busway, with a fleet of only 56 buses, occupies one of the fast lanes.

"The number of private car users switching to the busway is insignificant as of now as we only have one corridor," he said on Thursday.

Taufik hoped the operation of the new busway corridor from Pulogadung, East Jakarta, to Kalideres, West Jakarta, via the National Monument (Monas) starting next year would encourage more private car owners to use the busway.

Prior to the busway launch earlier this year, Governor Sutiyoso had repeatedly urged private vehicle owners to leave their cars at home and use the busway as an effort to minimize traffic congestion, particularly on major thoroughfares.

The study also asked respondents to comment on the busway service, fares, frequency of using the buses and the reasons why they use the busway.

From its 400 respondents, some 66 percent said that the busway fare was reasonable, 25 percent said it was cheap and 7 percent said it was expensive.

Taufik said the ongoing research conducted by the University of Indonesia Center for Transport Studies would give more information about the performance of the Blok M-Kota busway corridor.