'Voucher' parking system deemed unsatisfactory
Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The two-month trial of the voucher system for on-street parking apparently has not shown satisfactory progress in terms of revenue for the city.
Siswo Hantoro, a staff member at the Jakarta Parking Management Agency, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that the sophisticated system had not made a significant contribution to city revenue.
Siswo showed a report on the city's revenue from parking fees in five areas where the new system was initiated on June 1.
The US$500,000 project contributed only Rp 1.171 million (US$136.2) in July, or 1.06 percent of the total Rp 110.56 million collected from the five areas. The remaining 98.94 percent was collected manually by parking attendants.
Before the new system was introduced, the five areas collected a net revenue of Rp 79.54 million in May. Of the total parking fees collected parking attendants usually take in advance up to 75 percent of the fees as commission, Siswo said.
Using the new system, only 20 percent of last month's revenue of Rp 110.56 million will be contributed to the city. Seventy percent will be used to cover the system expenses and 10 percent as a management fee for parking operator PT Adiwira Sembada.
Siswo said the system was not working well as motorists had been uncooperative and were uninformed.
"We definitely need more time to promote the use of a cashless system," he said.
He suggested the involvement of an independent party to evaluate the new system and give recommendations.
The city has appointed the University of Indonesia's technology laboratory as an independent evaluator for the new system. The recommendations are expected to be announced next month.
Ismed Abidin, an expert from the laboratory, said "the result of last two months was still below expectations".
However, he told the Post that no decision had been taken as his institution was still waiting for the August results, as the pilot project was scheduled to last for three months.
"There is the possibility of significant progress during this month," he said.
The parking agency in cooperation with PT Adiwira Sembada applied the new system on Jl. Bulevar Raya, Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta; Jl. Jatinegara Timur, East Jakarta; Jl. Gajah Mada, West Jakarta; Jl. Raden Patah, South Jakarta; and Jl. H. Agus Salim, Central Jakarta.
The system equips parking attendants with modified handheld PDAs introducing a cashless parking transaction.
However, many motorists consider paying cash more convenient since they only have to pay Rp 1,000 at a time for parking.
Under the new system motorists could either pay cash to pay in advance for parking tickets or use a prepaid card to pay their parking fees.
Kunto Wibisono, spokesman for operator PT Adiwira, said that since Aug. 1, motorists are able to pay cash, due to many complaints over the inconvenience of using prepaid cards, but the operator has started to impose an hourly rate.
The parking attendants use a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) in charging the fees.
In practice, as observed by the Post, it was more like the old system but instead of getting a conventional receipt, motorists get a freshly printed receipt from the modified PDA after paying cash.