Transjakarta Busway Service Keeps Deteriorating

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - After six years of operations, the modern transportation mode of Transjakarta continues to deteriorate. The deterioration is apparent, among which from the increasing headway time (time between buses), the busway lane often violated by other vehicles, dirty shelters, and other infrastructure complaints.

The statement was made by Izzul Waro, researcher from the Transportation Study Institute, in a press conference, Jakarat, Thursday.

"In its sixth year a lot of (buses) are behind schedule. The problems are, among which, the congestion of passengers and the headway or time between buses which is stretching longer."

The poor Transjakarta service has diminished the people's anthusiasm to use this mode of mass transport. This, according to Izzul Waro, is proven from the fluctuations of the number of passengers in the last six months.

"From our empiric data, the passengers are also very resistant to the services of the Transjakarta public bus service."

In July 2009, the number of passengers reached 7,143 million, then in August and September it dropped to 6,474 million. Although the number raises in October and November.

Other problems dealing with the Transjakarta Busway are, among which, safety and security, dirty shelters, and the non-operational corridor 9 and 10 that have been prepared since two years ago.

"Since its launch, there have been five fire accidents on the busway, that means roughly one fire incident per year," Waro added.

The accident rate in the busway lane from time to time also increases. In 2007, there were 31 accidents, 66 in 2007, then quite a leap to 167 in 2008, and finally a big leap to 264 in 2009. (C14-09/C17-09)