Organda not involved in route surveys: Official

JAKARTA (JP): Surveys on bus routes and a need to add new buses no longer involve the Organization of Land Transportation Owners (Organda), the organization's executive said yesterday.

Organda's secretary in charge of mikrolet (minivan buses), Hadi Susilo, said surveys, conducted by the City Land Transportation Agency (DLLAJ), did not involve Organda since August of last year.

"These (inaccurate surveys) were a factor which triggered drivers' strikes throughout the city," Hadi said yesterday.

He said Organda should be involved in surveys on routes prior to any addition of new buses in the city.

On Tuesday the chairman of the organization's city-branch said bus owners were also to blame. Aip Syarifuddin had said owners tried "every possible way" to obtain lucrative routes, but did not elaborate.

Hadi said until yesterday, strikes were still occurring in protest of new minivans.

Yesterday's strikes affected at least two mikrolet routes: M19 between Kranji and Cililitan, and M26 between Bekasi and Kampung Melayu. However several mikrolet were seen operating around noon.

Drivers who had resumed services were those operating M29 minivans between Cililitan and Klender, he said.

"Many passengers were stranded despite efforts to provide additional transportation," Hadi said.

Earlier, both the DLLAJ and the city's assistant secretary on economic and development affairs said the surveys on routes involved Organda.

The agency had also cooperated with the Bandung Institute of Technology to study city transportation.

Hadi said some minivans operated illegally in the city.

"There are 136 new minivans operating in the city's five mayoralties, which do not have the required vehicle registration numbers from Organda," Hadi said.

He said the city had ruled that all public transportation vehicles must have Organda registration numbers.

Meanwhile in Bogor, authorities have begun the slow process of improving supervision. Chief of the local City Land Transportation Agency, Endang Tabroni, said the agency was beginning its first step, which was the issuance of stickers with numbers for every bus.

This was aimed to keep track of the number of minivans on a given route, to avoid a repetition of the uncontrolled number of vehicles. Endang had said the agency already knew that the set number of 256 minivans for one route had reached 300, but did not know how it happened.

He said the issuance of stickers was taking a long time, after the four-day strike of all routes two weeks ago, because "the sticker designs have to be approved by the West Java Land Transportation Agency" in Bandung.

He said he had secured a Rp 850 price for each sticker from a sticker producer. Bus owners will have to buy two stickers per bus and stick them on each side. (ste/24)