Trains save energy, ease pollution
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
As an employee of an electronics shop in Glodok, West Jakarta, Wati, 23, counts on the city train to be able to reach her office every day from her house in Citayam, West Java.
"Every day, I and hundreds of people living in my area take the train to office. We don't mind if we have to stand up along the trip as long as we reach our work place on time," she told The Jakarta Post.
Wati said that it takes less than an hour to reach the Kota train station from the Citayam station by train, compared to over four hours by bus.
"You know the traffic jams nowadays. I'd be so stressed and tired by the time I reached my work place. We simply couldn't go to work if there was no train," she said.
Wati is one of hundreds of thousands of train commuters in Depok, Bekasi, and Tangerang as well as Bogor whose livelihoods depend on the city train.
According state railway company PT KAI around 500,000 passengers use city trains every day.
Train researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) Taufik Hidayat said that trains as a means of mass transportation should be developed to answer, at least partially, problems including the country's increasing energy consumption, traffic congestion, and pollution, as an alternative to simply building more toll roads.
"Not only faster, but trains are also more economical in terms of energy used. Train with eight carriages can take around 1,600 passengers and only consumes three liters of fuel per kilometer. Compared to buses, which can only take 40 people, or cars with three or four passengers, trains consume much less fuel," he told The Jakarta Post.
Taufik, who is also the executive director of Indonesia Railway Watch (IRW), said that according to a recent survey trains consume an average of 1,995 British Thermal Units per passenger per mile, or around 58 percent of the fuel consumption of busses which stood at 3,415 British Thermal Units.
Currently, it is estimated that vehicles consume around 80 percent of the country's total fuel.
Taufik said that since almost all trains operating in the Greater Jakarta area were electric, they produced very little pollution.
"According to a survey on transportation in Sweden, pollution costs of road transportation reached US$16 billion a year while trains have an annual pollution cost of US$60 million," he said.
Jakarta is the third most polluted city in the world with its 6.5 million vehicles, mostly private cars.
Motor vehicles are the main contributors to air pollution in the city, accounting for about 70 percent of pollutants, including carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide.
Every day, at least 138 new cars on average enter the city streets, putting further burdens on already overcrowded roads, most of which are community streets and lanes. Not to mention the 600,000 drivers who commute from suburban areas, like Bekasi and Tangerang.
The latest study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) shows that the economic loss caused by the congestion now amounts to Rp 5.5 trillion annually.
To overcome the congestion, the city administration plans to build seven new toll roads worth Rp 23 trillion (US$2.4 billion) connecting busy areas in the capital. But transportation experts believe they could cause even greater congestion, saying that the new toll roads would simply allow more vehicles to enter the city.
Taufik said that trains were just one of the solutions to congestion.
"It is time that the government upgrades and rebuilds trains to attract more people to use them. Remember, KAI's total assets are only valued at Rp 3 trillion. With Rp 23 trillion (the cost of the proposed toll roads), the government could make KAI eight times bigger and better than it is now," he said.