Taxi fares to increase by average of 36 percent
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Taxi passengers in the capital will soon have to spend more money for their daily transportation as the city administration plans to announce new taxi fares, with an average increase of 36 percent.
Assistant to city secretary for development affairs Ma'mun Amin told the press on Monday that the city secretary's economic bureau had submitted the draft decree on new taxi fares to Governor Sutiyoso.
"The draft decree on new taxi fares prepared by the economic bureau has been on the table of the governor," he said, but Ma'mun refused to elaborate on the figure.
According to a source in the administration, the new fares will be 33 percent higher for the flag fall, from Rp 3,000 (33 US cents) to Rp 4,000, and 38.5 percent higher for the per-kilometer charge, from Rp 1,300 to Rp 1,800, while the waiting charges will charge will also go up 38.5 percent from Rp 13,000 to Rp 18,000 per hour.
The new fares are actually lower than those demanded by the Jakarta chapter of Land Transportation Owners Association (Organda) -- Rp 5,700 for flag fall, Rp 2,200 per kilometer trip, and Rp 22,000 an hour for waiting.
Organda chairman Herry Roti cautiously welcomed the taxi fare hike, saying his organization had no other choice, but to accept the administration's decision.
"We only hope that the new fares will be immediately enforced because taxi drivers and operators have been waiting a long time for this," he said, while adding that the drivers had complained over the significant drop of income following fuel price hikes last month.
The price of premium gasoline increased from Rp 1,800 to Rp 2,400 on March 1.
Meanwhile, chairman of the City Transportation Council (DTK) Soetanto Soehodo said that his organization did not propose any figures for taxi fares because taxis were not categorized as economy class public transportation and thus did not concern the DTK.
According to Soetanto, however, the recommendation of his organization is that the administration should only decide the ceiling fare so that taxi operators have the opportunity to decide the fares based on their respective service quality.
"We think that setting a ceiling fare would be very fair because the service quality of each taxi operator is quite different," he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
He said with such a ceiling price, taxi operators would consider their respective level of service before making decisions on their fares.
"Those that have good services will take the ceiling fares, while those who have lower service quality can decide on lower fares. Such a mechanism will be fair both for users and the operators," he added.
Sutiyoso said early in the morning that he had not read the draft decree on new taxi fares, but promised to sign it immediately after he got it.