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Young campaigner sits alongside prominent seniors in public transportation forum
Paul Liong, a student at the Jakarta Intercultural School, might look like your regular 17-year-old boy next door, but he has marked an important milestone in his activities as a public transportation campaigner.
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Sebastian Partogi
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Age is just a number, the folk wisdom says.
Paul Liong, a student at the Jakarta Intercultural School, might look like your regular 17-year-old boy next door, but he has marked an important milestone in his activities as a public transportation campaigner. He has just initiated a forum featuring prominent speakers seeking to find new ways to encourage more people to use public transportation at the American cultural center @america in Pacific Place, Sudirman, Jakarta.
On Sept. 29, Liong was the youngest among prominent speakers such as PT MRT Jakarta president director William Sabandar and Jakarta Transportation Discussion Forum co-founder Yusa Permana, in a discussion panel exploring issues related to public transportation use.
The speakers’ presentations could be summarized as following. Currently, Jakarta already has several public transportation options, Transjakarta buses, the Commuter Line trains, taxi and ride-hailing applications as well as angkot (minivans). The Jakarta administration has actually stepped up in its efforts to make these options more convenient for city residents, but it can still make many improvements to make the city’s public transportation better.
Paul, for instance, applauded Transjakarta for its success in developing a more sophisticated integration of buses covering different routes over the years.
According to data from the Transportation Ministry in 2017 only around 23 percent of Jakartans commuted using public transportation, resulting in Rp 3 trillion of fuel being wasted annually, while making air pollution 70 percent worse annually.
Private vehicle use actually increased by 11 percent annually, while our roads have expanded by only 0.01 percent annually.
William said the launch of the MRT Jakarta in March 2019 would mark a new opportunity for Jakarta’s public transportation. Yusa, meanwhile, stated that the government needed to put its commitment to create a better public transportation ecosystem into real action.
“For instance, the government must be flexible toward technological change, make an effort to understand users’ needs and demands. Furthermore, the government must also be able to work together with the private sector, serving the public needs as its ultimate goal. Real transformation needs time,” Yusa said.
“Currently, we are in a critical period. We must evolve now, or else the future generation will miss a lot of opportunities because of our slow actions,” Yusa added.
Paul, meanwhile, proposed the establishment of an integrated digital system connecting all transportation modes.
“A seamless multi-modal system also needs to be taken into consideration. For example, people can take Transjakarta to go from an MRT station to their final destination. Last, technology must be developed for the government to analyze problem areas and solve them for better commuter satisfaction”, Paul said.
