Busway: Hate It or Love It

Momentarily I realize that I have left the motherland of Indonesia for about four months and despite this, I always keep myself updated to the most actual issues occurring in the country. This week I found out that Antasari Azhar, which is currently our non-active Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Chief and whose murder conspiracy case had turned to be as complicated as I could possibly read in a novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Yesterday (20.05.2009) the composite stock price index (IHSG) managed to rise until 1900 points although at the end of the day it declined slightly; SBY chose Boediono which was the former governor of the central bank as vice presidential candidate for the upcoming presidential election; Plan crash two days ago in east Java which leads to almost 100 dead victims; I even know that our flamboyant and outspoken lawyer, Hotman Paris Hutapea had just bought a six billion IDR of red shiny Ferrari as a wedding present for her wife which is the national-widely known as the movie star of everything, Meriam Belina. In general, I am completely a well-informed big boy, albeit such cheesy gossip stories won't necessarily float my boat. But anyway, none of those had really the essence to give me the power to write this note. Instead, I do find something presumably interesting and quintessentially Indonesia, especially the capital city Jakarta, because it perfectly captures what I always have in mind about this country, which are irregularity and disastrous management in almost everything. This news however can be found in Kompas newspaper yesterday on page 33. The boldly written headline is provocative enough to turn your head to look at because it says: Crisis That Never Ends, and then you will see a big photo describing people queuing for bus at the Harmoni Central Busway shelter.

Now I should point out that this note is actually not planned before and you will not find it either in the upcoming issue tab on the left side of this note, it is just something incredibly unique and very indonesish that I just want to cock about. Basically, I just read the article and stumbled on the fact that Trans Jakarta Busway (TJB), which have been around ever since like in 2004 or so, is actually getting worse in providing service to communities. Following the success of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in Bogota, Colombia, the city administration in Jakarta is set to collaborate with transport authorities in Bogota to create a whole new bus connection that connects every corners of Jakarta. Not trying to make it as if it is a big deal, but at the very early launch of the first route of TJB which passes through the posh district of central Jakarta, I was quite optimistic that this is the solution to massive traffic jam in Jakarta. And in the first year, it was indeed fast, comfortable and with a flat rate of 3500 IDR, it was cheap as well. In January 2006, another two corridors were added and a central connecting shelter which is called Harmoni Central Busway was built to complement the first one. It was still good actually because I even used it every Saturday to attend my German course. But then things started to go wrong in the next year because most people in Indonesia only know how to buy things and they have absolutely no idea how to maintain it. Buses broke down a lot; the interval time of waiting got longer and during the worst rush hour, you might spend nearly one hour of waiting; there is neither bus arrival nor departure schedule; gridlocks can be found everywhere because the special individual bus lane occupies the lane for public vehicles; accidents more often than not happened and the crash victims had always been motorcyclists; crimes in the bus are most likely to happen more often. I started to create a trifle less hatter to this particular public transport as it was announced that another four corridors would be launched in early 2007, mainly because the service was not as satisfying as it was in 2004 and it in fact created more traffic jams on the road. In 2008, the city administration ridiculously planned to add three more and one of them stretches across the front access road to my home! Truth be told, I am not saying that I don't want some part of the main road to be taken as a bus lane, because that would be blithering idiot. But the simple fact is, it does form another road clogs around my residence area. Now though, I curst that incredibly stupid nonsense of bringing such a useless idea of a proper public transport onto the road.

"By traveling with TJB, my life is considerably shortened."

So, after a total ten corridors, we only got thousands of passengers traveling with a massive discomfort on an individual bus lane with a long queue of other vehicles on the lanes next to it. As far as is concerned, things look bleak for this very public transport, but the most painful thing to listen is that PT Trans Batavia which is held responsible for running and maintaining the buses, admitted that they have financial difficulties to maintain the condition of buses after the subsidiary from local budget and expenditure (APBD) was reduced from 210 billion down to just 70 billion IDR per year. There is nothing else to say and the message here is then very clear, there are still many works to do in the future. This is plainly some ideas and please get the darn thing done well. The government could start by setting a more effective cooperation with countries whose public transport system works well, maybe like Singapore or Germany because these two countries do have a well organized public transport, and stop bragging that Trans Jakarta has the longest busway lane in the world!! The truth is, Trans Jakarta has a longer lane than Bus Rapid Transit in Bogota, don't exaggerate things because not all people in this country are imbeciles. The next is, mend the work ethic by campaigning a slogan "Do it well or don't do it at all." The other is, why keep spending money on adding corridors, meanwhile the existing corridors still haven't provided an adequate service. I seriously rather have less bus corridors than seeing those colorful buses bog down on its lane due to lack of maintenance and please get more buses because after a bus departs from one shelter, the next bus will come in the next decade, people simply wait too long and that is totally unacceptable. I also strongly suggest something useful, something essential, something efficient and it is called the schedule. By traveling with TJB, my life is considerably shortened because I have always become crabby and impatient if the bus didn't show up. Besides, I still find it odds that people is satisfied with the service of TJB, because recently they introduce a new service and it is unbelievably rediculous. Now, the bus won't depart from the first or interconnecting shelter if it doesn't have full enough passengers to transport. If you are an Indonesian, you would definitely realize that this is no other than a mikrolet or metromini. The operational manager stated that they couldn't possibly run the bus if there is no passenger in it and it is for efficiency as well. Now what in the name of all that's holy is that?! People pay for the tax and they deserve good service.

To summarize, I will not write any longer, albeit a longer note is by any chance still possible considering how much a let down at large this transport mode is. However, I will let you have your own time to process your own idea of how a public transport should provide a properly good service. But to me, TJB has completely failed and it will never gain my approval if there is no improvement in the near future. There are still tons of works to do if the people behind TJB want those who drive their own cars to work, switch to use TJB. They could say lots of thing, but I definitely want to see them do more. Otherwise, just work harder and buy a chopper. Have a nice weekend and enjoy!