After monorail flops, now elevated buses

The Jakarta administration has decided to use concrete columns of the abandoned monorail project for an elevated bus rapid transit (BRT) project.

City Transportation chief Udar Pristono said on Wednesday that the planned elevated BRT would be integrated with the Transjakarta BRT.

“We will build elevated exclusive lanes for the buses, but not a special track like O-bahn,” Pristono said.

He was referring to the O-bahn track design, in which buses ran on a specially built track, combining elements of both bus and rail systems.

Pristono said that the elevated BRT would have two lanes running back and forth between Jl. Jend. Sudirman and Jl. Gatot Subroto, via Semanggi, Senayan, Palmerah, Pejompongan and Kuningan.

The network will have 16 stations, with 12 of them connected to the Transjakarta route, and served by a total of 50 articulated buses.

Headway between the buses, which will have a total capacity of 180 passengers each, is expected to be around three minutes.

According to a study by the agency, the elevated system will serve more than 7,300 people per hour during peak hours, or almost 46,000 passengers per day.

Ticket price for the elevated BRT will be the same as Transjakarta.

Pristono said that the existing columns would need to be reinforced for the project, adding a concrete layer to enlarge the pillars from its current dimensions of 120 by 160 centimeters to 160 by 200 centimeters.

Construction is expected to begin next year and the elevated BRT is planned to start operating in 2014.