Two bus firms grounded for week
Two bus firms grounded for week
JAKARTA (JP): Two city-owned bus companies have been put out of business for a week because they broke an agreement to provide additional buses during the recent Idul Fitri exodus.
The head of the city land transport control agency, JP Sepang, said yesterday that the companies, PT Arion and P.O. Giri Indah Andalan, were not allowed to operate for a week.
"As of today PO Giri Indah Andalan has not been allowed to operate for a week, while PT Arion is grounded as of tomorrow," Sepang said.
Sepang said all of the fleets owned by the two companies are not allowed to operate on the city's streets. PT Arion owns 50 buses while PO Giri Indah has 40 buses.
Sepang said the punishment was meted out to the companies because they failed to provide buses to transport Jakartans who intended to leave the city to celebrate Idul Fitri in their hometowns.
Sepang said the companies had promised to operate 50 additional between them from Feb. 13 to March 2. However, they broke their word. "When we called them to send the buses they only sent one bus saying that there were not enough buses in their pools," he said.
These buses were needed to transport Jakartans on Feb. 16 and 17, because traffic congestion along Java's northern coast roads had hampered many buses' progress from Central and East Java.
On those dates thousands of people were stranded at the city's main bus terminals because there were no buses to take them to their hometowns. This forced the city administration to deploy military trucks to transport travelers.
Both companies were unavailable for comment.
The city administration prepared 1,750 buses to back up the 6,694 regular buses for Lebaran.
The back-up fleet is made up of buses owned by state-owned bus companies PPD and Damri and city buses companies Mayasari Bakti, Arion, Bianglala, Himpurna, Mass Trans, Kopaja, Metro Mini, Koantas Bima and PO Giri Indah.
Sepang said his office prepared so many buses as back-up fleets because he had predicted that there would be heavy traffic jams along the route and many Jakartans would be stranded in bus terminals.(yns)