Website links car owners to commuters

Website links car owners to commuters

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Some may prefer to take it to the streets, while others just
grumble about rising transportation costs as they fill up the
tanks of their gas-guzzling cars.

But for Tangerang residents Rudyanto and his fiancee Sylvia,
the recent fuel price hike has prompted them to set up
www.nebeng.com, a website aims at linking people who need rides
to those with cars so they can share -- or nebeng -- a car to
and from work on Sept. 28.

"Day after day we are stuck in heavy traffic on our way to and
from work, while we see that cars in front, beside and behind us
are often empty of passengers," Rudyanto said.

To date, nebeng.com has 1,360 registered people who needed
rides and about 560 people who provide vehicles. It is not clear,
however, how many were successful.

"Many people providing vehicles only want women passengers for
reasons of safety," he explained.

The website gets a lot of criticism and suggestion and
www.nebeng.com also provides a forum for members to share
experiences and interact with one another.

A registered member, Hidayat Tjokrodjojo, through the forum
suggested that the nebeng custom would be more successful if
people working at the same office or those living in the same
housing complex can be convinced to use car pools.

"The success of these car pools can be posted on
www.nebeng.com to encourage others to do the same," Hidayat said,
adding that spacious office parking areas could be utilized to
"pool" people waiting for rides and those providing them.

Rudyanto stressed that a lot of money and fuel could be saved
if those empty cars were utilized to transport passengers --
paying passengers -- going the same way as the driver.

"Our idea was that instead of driving two empty cars, people
going to and from work just share one car and save 50 percent on
fuel costs," Rudyanto, who works as a web developer, told The
Jakarta Post.

The government raised fuel prices by an average of 126.6
percent per litter on Oct. 1 after oil prices surged to over
US$70 per barrel on the international market.

The price of Premium gasoline, for example, increased from Rp
2,300 to Rp 4,500, while diesel rose Rp 2,100 to
Rp 4,300 and kerosene from Rp 700 to Rp 2,000 per litter.

Almost immediately after the fuel price hike, the city
administration increased transportation fares by up to 58
percent.

The Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) declared recently
that the fuel price increase has driven up Jakartans' household
spending on transportation and has gone beyond its recommendation
of 12 percent of their total income.

YLKI said that transportation spending of Jakartans rose to 20
percent of household spending with the increase in fuel prices
recently.

The idea of sharing modes of transport to and from work is
certainly nothing new to Jakartans, most of whom daily commute
from housing complexes outside Jakarta proper into the capital.
Jakarta's day time population balloons to 12 million people, and
falls back to about 7.5 million at night, giving a good
indication of the numbers of people to commute.

One only has to stop by the area around the Jakarta Police
Headquarters in South Jakarta at five o'clock in the evening,
when offices close, to note lines of private cars offering rides
to Tangerang, Bekasi, and Depok. More often than not, these so-
called omprengan drivers are also office workers who just want
some company and a little extra cash for their way back home.

The problem with omprengan, of course, is safety, both for
passengers and the driver.

For this www.nebeng.com has a solution. "We provide columns
for mobile phone numbers, telephones or e-mail on registration
for both people offering a ride and those who need one," Rudyanto
said, explaining that in this way people can first personally
contact and screen those they want to share vehicles with.