Effectiveness of Transjakarta Busway in Jakarta
Current Situation in Jakarta
2. Current situation in Jakarta
There are several negative externalities resulting from the over-consumption of vehicles in Jakarta and traffic congestion is, beyond all, the biggest problem. Traffic congestion is a condition on road networks that occurs as the amount of users increases, and is characterized by lower speeds, longer travel times, and an increase in vehicular queuing.
Jakarta is the largest city in Indonesia and the fourth most populated city in the world: today, more than 1.25 million people go into or out for work each day (Cochrane “Too many vehicles”). The huge population, the fast population growth and lack of infrastructure in the city (flood problems, lack of new roads) have triggered serious traffic problems that have only become worse and worse in the recent past years.
The traffic congestion affects, among others, human movement and economic activities. It is estimated that traffic moves at an average speed of 13 kilometers per hour in Jakarta (JP “Time, money, health”); the city’s roads will soon no longer have enough space to accommodate motorcycles and cars, which are steadily increasing in number. Traffic congestion has instilled the culture of unpunctuality: people arrive late for work or appointments as they have to spend a longer time on the road; productivity declines as traffic gridlock slows delivery of goods and all economic activities; it may threaten people’s lives as in the case of an ambulance carrying a critical patient or a fire truck rushing to help douse a fire.
There are also other consequences of the over-consumption of vehicles, such as pollution. It has worsened in Jakarta because of the instantly growing demand in vehicles, creating various health problems such as infection of the upper respiratory tract. According to data from the Health Ministry, respiratory tract infections topped the list of diseases in the city last year, with about 1.8 million reported cases, which is a 22.35 percent increase from the previous year (JP “Time, money, health”). Apart from this, the KPPB (Committee Against Leaded Gasoline) states that Jakartans spend about 60% of their journey time in traffic jams, instead of in motion (Hargreaves “Still stalled?”). This implies a considerable loss in personal productivity, which in turn could translate into a loss of working time and of overall national productivity. Firdaus Ali, an Indonesian environmentalist estimated total annual losses of RP 9.7 trillion in lost work time, and according to the Presidential Work Unit for Development Monitoring and Control, each year Jakarta lost Rp 12.8 trillion as a result of severe traffic congestion (JP “Time, money, health”).
Given the many losses inflicted by the over-consumption of vehicles, and especially by the traffic congestion, the Indonesian government must find breakthroughs to deal with the problem: In 2011, they have decided not only to eliminate over-aged minibuses on the road, but also to add even more bus lanes, and cut subsidized fuel for private cars.
According to what has been said by the city government, they will be imposing a limit on the age of public transportation vehicles in an attempt to improve the safety for passengers, as well as to reduce the number of vehicles on the road (Arditya “Jakarta to phase”). Plus, public minibuses (such as Metrominis for example) are also known for their notoriously reckless drivers, which somehow effects the situation on roads as well.
Another attempt by the government to reduce traffic congestion would be adding more corridors to the busway system: this year, the Jakartans welcomed the newly launched Corridor 11 and results showed that more and more people have started taking this route in the first six days of operation. Other new routes are already planned and are due to be opened in the next few years as well (The Jakarta Post “Jakartans welcome convenient”).
The city government has also decided starting in April 2012, to stop subsidizing fuel for most private vehicles, and will only allow public transportation vehicles and motorcycles to fill up with state-subsidized fuel. According to the Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo, this regulation will not only help them save money (the government spends more than RP 160 trillion on subsidizing fuel), but will also ease the traffic congestion by discouraging people from buying new cars, which in turn will give a boost to public transportation, and most likely Transjakarta (Barley “Jakartans mourn the”).
The Transjakarta busways, which the focus of this topic will be set on, is also one of the governmental solutions that aim to reduce traffic congestion in Jakarta. Starting from the year of 2004, the government put into service this busway system that allowed the Jakarta population to have a better transportation option. Since its inauguration in January that year, Transjakarta has grown from a single route with 54 buses running along a 12.9-kilometer line from Blok M to Kota, to a mass network that covers the city and is connected to many of its congested thoroughfares. With a total of 11 routes, crisscrossing the capital and covering more than 172 kilometers with 524 buses in its fleet, it serves more than 7 million passengers every month, and is now the longest and most extensive bus rapid transit system in the world (Arditya “Jakarta launches new”). According to Jakarta’s current governor, Fauzi Bowo, the city’s rapid transit bus had attracted an increasing amount of passengers: in 2010, the busses carried 280.000 passengers each day, whereas in 2011, the busses have carried 350.000 passengers per day (The Jakarta Post “Governor Fauzi claims”).
Despite the increasing number of carried passengers, the traffic congestion problem in Jakarta does not seem to be getting better; and moreover, it seems like the possibilities of traffic jam on the roads are increasing. According to Bambang Sustanto, chairman of the Indonesian Transportation Society, the average speed on the roads dropped from 26 to 20 kilometers an hour between 2000 and 2007. Also, according to a groundbreaking transportation study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, if private vehicle numbers continue to grow at the equal levels, by 2020 greenhouse gases in Greater Jakarta will be 2.35 times higher than their 2002-levels (Cochrane “Too many vehicles,”). As in this year, the average speeds have decreased by three kilometers per hour, to between only 13-15 kilometers per hour (Hargreaves “Still stalled? While”).
From this, the question is whether the busway can still be affected when traffic occurs. Cars and motorcycles cut into their lanes to avoid traffic on the public roads, reducing the effectiveness of the busways and making “mini traffics” occur in their lane as well. Every day, the roads are occupied by more vehicles, resulting in less space on the roads and leading to an even worse traffic problem: it is assumed that 1.500 new motorcycles and 500 new cars enter the roads every day, and by most official estimates, there are around 15 million motorized vehicles -cars, motorcycles, busses and bajajs- on Jakarta’s streets each day, while the road capacity is only 1 million vehicles (Arditya “Elevated road work”).
So we are in a perfect traffic storm created by the combination of inefficient public transportation, too many vehicles and encroachment onto roads by street vendors, minivans and buses. The Transjakarta busway is one of the government’s solutions to reduce the traffic congestion, but as it is proven, it does not seem to solve the problem. This is exactly what the study is about: Are the busways in Jakarta effectively reducing the market failure of traffic?
Data Analysis & Results
The data that have been collected will be presented and analyzed separately in two parts: the first part shows how the busways are indeed faster during some hours (mostly rush hours), whereas the second part shows how it fails to solve effectively the traffic congestion. The first part is using data from: measures of required travel time for both busway and car, and a questionnaire (survey) distributed to the busway users. The other part uses secondary resources extracted from newspaper and online articles.
Conclusion
The results of this investigation show that the hypothesis that was set at the beginning is partly correct. The data collected for the time differences shows that the Transjakarta busway is effective, because it requires less time than other vehicles to go from Polda to Sarinah station during rush hours. The responses from the busway users also prove that they are a better transportation option, because it may help them avoid wasting time being stuck in traffic. However, if the waiting time for busways is considered, it is then ineffective: car is faster during normal hours and morning rush hours. So if the busways are effective, it is likely that people would take busses instead of cars, but because of the quality difference, people might still prefer cars to busways.
On the other side, the secondary sources show that the positive effect of these busways is not large enough to take over the consequence of the fast-increasing population and vehicle growth: the growth of new roads and busses is not increasing proportionally with that of vehicle sales.
In the abstract, it is mentioned that the government’s main desired result was to reduce traffic jam, as well as slowing down the increasing traffic congestion in Jakarta. As the results have shown, some results are accomplished whereas others aren’t: first, the traffic is not reduced, because the positive effect of busways in smaller than the negative effect of economic and population growth; however, since the busways still have some positive effect, the situation would be even worse without them. Meanwhile, the desired result of slowing down the increase of traffic is somehow achieved: people now choose the busways instead of cars (because it is cheaper, requires less time, avoids traffic, etc); but however, traffic congestion is still getting worse, because the amount of vehicles is still increasing while the government does not improve the infrastructure (not building enough roads) or add more buses.
Finally, to answer the main question “Do busways reduce effectively traffic congestion in Jakarta?”, we can conclude that the busways do reduce traffic. People choose to take the bus instead of car, because it is cheaper and faster during rush hours, it is safer, and helps to reduce traffic. However, the positive effect of busways is “invisible” because of the increase of traffic (due to economic and population growth). In other words, the negative effects of economic growth (more cars) exceed the positive effects of the busways (less cars); the positive effect of the busway is therefore not large enough to reduce traffic congestion.
This research focuses mostly on the effectiveness of the Transjakarta busways, but as it is explained in the background research, other solutions have been taken in consideration as well: eliminating subsidized fuel for private cars, adding new corridors for the busways, getting rid of old transportation vehicles, etc. So a further investigation on the effectiveness of other solutions is highly recommended.
- Economic Investigation by Yoyo.
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