The Woes or Goes of Public Transportation

By Barrie | August 21st, 2007 | No Comments

If you stop to think about it, you’ll notice that the distance between one car and another has shrunk so much over the years in metropolitan Indonesia, that side-mirrors collide as a matter of routine.

Drivers can light each other’s cigarettes at a red light, by reaching through the window. Agile motorcycle riders weave their way through the traffic, risking life and limb on a daily basis, fascinating the tourists and irritating everybody else.

Every day, millions of commuters across Jakarta make their way to work, grumbling at the worsening macet. Yet, in the run-up to Jakarta’s recent gubernatorial election, traffic conditions strangling the economic future of the capital received only rare mentions by the candidates.

That an incalculable number of manhours is wasted daily, nerves are jangled and pollution is affecting health seems to have become an accepted reality. Being late is the norm and only the President is so keen to be on time that he will jump onto the back of a motorcycle.

How difficult is it to understand that slow asphyxiation cannot be good for the city or its citizens? How long should it take for an administration to understand the problem and then start doing something about it? In an increasingly user-pay culture, you would think lessons would be easily learned by looking at Singapore’s high cost of putting cars on the road, with the revenue then plowed back into world-class mass transportation.

Taxing the rich to give to the poor is a universally accepted concept but Indonesia’s elite, like much of Asia’s, seem to have difficulty embracing the idea.

Two decades of worsening traffic jams says not much change is coming to Jakarta’s roads, or Surabaya’s, or Bandung’s anytime soon. Not until more people laugh at the comical sight of the Bapak in the backseat, breathing invisible fumes and inching his way forward, left behind by the hordes of two-wheelers wriggling through the traffic. Or the buses whizzing past in the busway lanes.

Years after they were first introduced with much fanfare, there is still no credible report on the supposed contribution that the expanding busway network has made to the city of Jakarta.
The mostly vacant lanes are looked on with much envy by every other motorist. In the meantime, ferries have gone down with amazing frequency, planes have crashed so often they’ve caused fear internationally, with trains and buses often meeting unfortunate ends, evoking little more than a sympathetic shake of the head.

Commuters who fall off the roofs of these moving vehicles barely get a mention in the media.

If the powers that be are doing nothing about the state of public transportation, there’s a good reason why. Politicians rarely go around “doing good” voluntarily, without pressure. Judging by the public’s response to a poll conducted on public transportation, there is indeed mounting pressure.

A total of 1,762 respondents across the country were recently asked if they “still feel safe taking public transportation in Indonesia”. They gave their opinions freely, whether or not they had recently used each of the transportation systems listed.

Other than the humble bus, it appears that most people are wary of using most other forms of transportation available around the country. No surprises there.

The special poll was conducted in conjunction with Roy Morgan Single Source, the country’s largest syndicated survey with more than 27,000 Indonesian respondents annually, projected to reflect 90 percent of the population over the age of 14. That is a universe of 140 million people. The results are updated every 90 days.

There are 12.3 million people who have taken a bus recently. Seventy-six percent of the population still feels safe using this humble and popular form of everyday transportation. Kudos to the brave men who pilot the buses around the country every day.

While there are 0.8 million people who have used a train recently, 68 percent of the population give the kereta api a big thumbs down. No thanks, to the train companies.

Some 0.2 million people have been on a ferry or ship in recent times. But 83 percent of the population consider the floating vessels around the country unsafe. No thanks, to the shipping companies.

Some 2 million Indonesians have traveled by air in the last 12 months. And 84 percent of the population would rather walk than fly. My words and my figure of speech, but my sentiments too. No thanks, to the airlines.

A worse report card could hardly be imagined. To politicians out there, the verdict is clear: this could be an election issue. To everybody in business, the message is simple: there is money to be made in providing safe and comfortable transportation. To the public at large, an idea to consider: how about honking your horn at 8:30 a.m. every Monday morning, for 30 seconds? Get your bus driver, your taxi driver, your ojek driver to join in too. That would tell your democratically elected representatives that you’re not happy with the traffic, the transportation systems available, the safety records. It’s the least you can do to express your disgust at the way the common man is still treated in this not-so-new democracy. Or, you can continue shaking your head.

Debnath Guharoy

The writer can be contacted at Debnath.Guharoy@roymorgan.com