Weekend sees peak of inbound passengers

Weekend sees peak of inbound passengers

Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Most Jakartans had returned home by Sunday morning and prepared
to get back into routine on Monday, marking the end of the Idul
Fitri holiday.

The Pulogadung bus terminal in East Jakarta was still
relatively busy on Sunday afternoon, while the Gambir railway
station in Central Jakarta was quiet.

Sunday saw the peak of the Idul Fitri influx in Pulogadung
when 48,954 passengers arrived in the early hours between 3 a.m.
and 7 a.m., causing heavy traffic around the bus terminal.

However, traffic conditions had returned to normal by 9 a.m.,
as reported by Antara news agency.

Saturday was also a busy day, with 48,267 passengers arriving
out of the 371,412 passengers in total that have arrived at the
terminal in the week after Idul Fitri.

The terminal only recorded 234,183 passengers leaving Jakarta
during the holiday season, which started one week prior to Idul
Fitri and ended one week after.

Idul Fitri officially fell on Dec. 6 and Dec. 7, although
followers of Muhammadiyah celebrated it one day earlier.

It is not clear whether the additional 137,000 passengers were
new migrants or simply Jakartans who had left town much earlier.

Last year, Pulogadung saw some 193,000 passengers leaving for
their hometowns and some 299,000 people entering the city.

Meanwhile, in Gambir railway station in Central Jakarta, the
only queue was at a counter selling tickets for the Parahyangan
train bound for Bandung, which is a common sight every weekend.

A spokesman for state railway operator PT Kereta Api Indonesia
(KAI)'s Jakarta Operational Area, Zainal Abidin, said train
departures had returned to schedule following the derailment of
the Argo Dwipangga.

The train derailed in Kebumen, Central Jakarta, when it was
heading for Jakarta from Surakarta, Central Java, when a box
truck hit and damaged a bridge.

"All train departures were delayed by the accident, but
departures had returned to schedule by Saturday," he told The
Jakarta Post.

"Basically, the Idul Fitri season went smoothly this year."

A total of 727,343 passengers departed the city from several
rail stations in Jakarta up until last Saturday compared to last
year's figure of 846,791 passengers.

Zainal maintained that in general trains departed on time,
although they did not always reach their destinations on time
because so much of the railway network was single track.

"A single track network requires a train of a lesser class to
stop at a station to give way to higher class trains coming from
the opposite direction or to allow one to pass from behind.

"The use of single tracks by both commuter and long-distance
trains also reduces the maximum speed that can be achieved by a
long-distance train," said Zainal.

It would be ideal if separate tracks were laid for each type
of train, although Zainal admitted financial constraints made it
impossible.

Currently, there is a 84-kilometer double track eastward
connecting Jakarta and Cikampek, West Java, which is used by both
commuter and long-distance trains.

There is also an electrified double track between Jakarta and
Bogor as part of the Greater Jakarta train network.

Double tracks are being laid to connect Cikampek to the West
Java cities of Bandung to the south and Cirebon to the east.

"We expect that all these projects will be finished by the end
of next year to improve our service for the next Idul Fitri
exodus and influx season," the director general of land
transportation at the Ministry of Transportation, Iskandar
Abubakar, told the Post last week.