Train company on the wrong track?
Train company on the wrong track?
With a spate of fatal accidents this year and perennial
complaints about poor service, state-owned railway company PT
Kereta Api Indonesia (PT KAI) is facing calls to put its house in
order. The Jakarta Post's Emmy Fitri examines the woes
besetting the company.
JAKARTA (JP): Every morning hundreds of people risk their
lives on their way to school or to the office.
Their mode of transport is to sit precariously on roofs of
trains careening through the city. It is unquestionably
dangerous, but it has become an everyday sight for Jakarta
residents over the years.
Thousands of people in Greater Jakarta rely on trains as the
fastest and cheapest public transportation means.
With only Rp 600, they can go from the heart of the city to as
far as Bogor or Serpong. The fare for express trains is Rp 2,500.
In rush hours, the trains are packed. Getting into the train
itself is a struggle as the passengers jostle for space.
"I like taking trains because it saves a lot of time," said
Lina, a small-scale trader who lives in Bintaro, Tangerang.
The train takes only a half hour to get to downtown Jakarta;
if she takes a bus, it will take at least two hours.
"But during rush hours, it's so difficult to get a space
there. On the other day, I almost fell because somebody pushed me
while we were trying to get in."
She also complained about the poor facilities in the economy-
class trains, which are showing their age. There are no fans, let
alone air conditioners, the windows are broken, and it is dark at
night.
Her biggest complaint, however, is the limited number of
trains.
The problems, including the fatal accidents, have fueled
demands that PT KAI improve its services and professionalism for
a public crying out for an inexpensive but comfortable ride.
Agus Pambagio from the Indonesian Consumer Foundation (YLKI)
said there must be restructuring of the poor management in the
company for it to meet a new double function of performing its
services to the public and gaining a profit.
The railway company acknowledges the problems.
"The passengers in Greater Jakarta trains really look like
tinned sardines," company spokesman Gatot Wibowo said.
Adding new trains to ease the problem is a hard proposition.
According to Gatot, the company invited investors to help
boost services and improve the condition of the aging,
dilapidated infrastructure.
He said the problem was that investment in the sector was
costly and unappealing.
"For a unit of a train, an investor needs at least Rp 80
billion. And if it operates in Greater Jakarta taking daily
commuters, it would take roughly 40 years to gain a return on the
initial investment."
He admitted that the condition of economy-class trains and the
infrastructure, such as the telecommunications equipment, was the
same as 10 years ago.
"We face a lot of problems and we will work on them one by
one. It's a mission impossible to improve the bad services and
poor infrastructure at once."
The company's priority is to improve the service of profit-
making trains, such as the first-class cars connecting Jakarta
with Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surakarta, Semarang and Surabaya. The
profitable trains subsidize the other trains; only 28 percent of
the firm's 116 trains earn profits.
"It (the company) is like a knife with two blades, but one of
them is dull," Gatot said.
PT KAI is also under pressure from its employees, who want
better salaries and welfare.
Train drivers say they are required to be alert all the time
and take on the huge and uneasy responsibility of hundreds of
lives in their hands. They say their meager compensation is
compounded by exhaustion from the demanding job.
"We want the management to pay more attention to our welfare,"
one of the drivers said in a recent informal meeting with
transportation and telecommunications minister Agum Gumelar.
A train driver has to work for eight hours per day; some
drivers, like those on inter-city trains, work even longer hours.
Accidents
The company's workers, especially the drivers, are often
blamed for the train accidents. This year alone there were 12
fatal accidents throughout the country and dozens of other minor
incidents.
The recent fatal collision between a Semarang-bound Tawangjaya
II occurred at about 6:30 a.m. in the village of Ketanggan,
Batang, some 100 kilometers west of Semarang. A preliminary
investigation revealed that human error was behind the accident.
Sixteen people died after the train driver of the passenger
train reportedly ignored signals from the nearby railway station
to halt to allow the freight train to pass.
A train driver said that his job required full obedience to
the regulations and operation procedures, or else fatal accidents
would be likely.
The 55-year-old man, who operates on the Jakarta-Bogor diesel
train route, said there was no reward and punishment system in
the company. He said many other drivers often ignored the
regulations and procedures but were rarely disciplined for their
transgressions.
He said the problem was there was no incentive for them to
work professionally.
"But if we do work well, there is no difference as we will get
nothing except our regular salary," he said.
The average monthly salary of a longtime train driver is
between Rp 700,000 to Rp 800,000.
The driver did not want to disclose his salary. "It's too
small. I have four children to feed, three of them are in
school."
But he was modest about his risky job, saying that anyone
could do it if they were well trained.
"I'm a junior high school graduate and have no skills for
other jobs. My late father was also a train driver -- it's common
that most of us (in PT KAI) are the products of KKN," he said,
referring to the Indonesian acronym for corruption, collusion and
nepotism.