Improving Public Transportation to Reduce Congestion

(Meningkatkan Transportasi Umum Untuk Mengurangi Kemacetan)

Written by: Tia Anggraini Lestari

There must be a time when you are sick of getting stuck in traffic jam. Just sitting still and move your vehicle slowly. You can’t help but annoyed. But do you ever wonder that the cause might be yourselves? Your vehicle is one of the cause of congestion that happen almost every busy day. It might be different if you make use of public transportation.

For many years, public transportation plays a great role in people mobility. But for over the last decade, the average number of public transportation users has decreased rapidly. Ten years ago, public transport users accounted for 45 percent of total transportation users, and it remained so until 2012. From that point, motorcycles became more ubiquitous as a result of almost 60 percent market share, as fewer and fewer people took to public transportation. Over the same period, public transport only accounted for 1 percent of total vehicles on the road. This happens because Indonesia doesn’t have a decent or well-functioning public transportation system. It is, without a doubt, one of the largest and most complex issues that the government and private sector must tackle from all fronts.

Jakarta for instance. On a daily basis, with a constant overcapacity in Trans Jakarta buses and trains, a lot of old city buses (operating for 30 years in general), of which some do not even have speedometers or proper brake systems are still operated. Besides, public transportation tends to have low occupancy partly due to bad facilities, overly frequent stops, and short routes. This brings us to another issues. The poor level of driving by those operating transport services such as reckless driving, hazard stops in improper areas, and a general disregard for road rules are only a few of the driving concerns. Given such conditions, it is only natural that merely 15 to 20 percent of citizens are willing to use public transportation.

Another problem is, the density of private vehicles cause congestion in some areas of the city. Jakarta has a length of roads that are relatively short and the direction of movement of vehicle between road are interconnected, so if there is congestion in a road section, it will cause congestion on other roads.

Restrictions on private vehicle ownership through increasing costs of vehicle ownership, fuel tax, vehicle tax, and high import duties would make people think twice to have private vehicle. Improving the facilities and infrastructure to make public transportation more comfortable, safer, and easy to access can make public transportation the first choice to travel.

Double-decker bus is one such example. It is really popular in London as the bus is interesting and you can enjoy the city view from the top. In Indonesia, double-decker bus is used as a tourism vehicle and only a few city have this bus. If we make double-decker bus a public transportation, more people will be interested to use public transportation.

Moreover, educating the public about the benefits of using public transportation is really important — initiatives such as obligating citizens to make use of public transport on a certain day of each month could be some of the cornerstones toward improving the overall sentiment.

In conclusion, I may say public transportation in Indonesia is still far from satisfactory. Lack of facilities and limited route make public transportation less desirable. People choose to use their own vehicle because they think that it is more flexible. Therefore, this has led to another problem, that is congestion. So, I strongly believe that make use of public transportation is one of the solution to resolve the congestion. But firstly, we need to fix the system and infrastructure so that people will be more interested to use public transportation.

It all won’t be easy, but the diamonds won’t shine without force and pressure.