J

akarta citizens have begun to return to the city after celebrating the Idul Fitri holiday in their hometowns, with inbound traffic expected to peak over the weekend.

A total of 31,787 holidaymakers arrived at the city’s four main bus terminals on Tuesday.

Approximately 8,000 arrived in Pulogadung terminal, East Jakarta; 14,437 in Kampung Rambutan, East Jakarta; 4,904 in Kalideres, West Jakarta and 4,419 in Lebak Bulus terminal, South Jakarta.

Terminal operators had also prepared late night inner city bus services to cater for people arriving in the city during the night.

Suarta Sebayang, head of Lebak Bulus Bus terminal, said the terminal had prepared seven late night bus service lines.

“With the late night services, the terminal will operate 24 hours. Passengers won’t have to wait at the terminal to go to their residences after arriving,” Suarta said on Wednesday.

He said the late night service would also prevent terminal crowding.

“Inner city bus operators have been instructed to operate at least 20 percent of their fleet to cater for incoming passengers during the night,” Suarta added. The late night service will be available until Monday.

Separately, Mateta Rizalulhaq, spokesman for state train operator KAI Greater Jakarta Operational Area, also said that an increase of incoming people had also been observed at the city’s train stations.

“Some of them have begun to arrive,” Mateta said. However, at the time of writing the company had not compiled the number of Tuesday’s arrivals.

Pasar Senen and Gambir train stations in Central Jakarta, two of the main intercity gates, recorded a total of 10,750 and 7,114 people respectively, arriving on Tuesday.

The Transportation Ministry predicted that the inbound traffic for land and sea transportation would peak on Friday and Saturday. The peak for air transportation will happen on Sunday.

“So far, returning traffic has gone according to our predictions. There’s no changes,” Bambang S. Ervan, the ministry’s spokesman said on Wednesday as quoted by kompas.com.

The management of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport expected a busy day on Wednesday as civil servants were expected to arrive in Jakarta.

“Government offices will start opening on Thursday, so we expect that most civil servants will return on Wednesday,” said Danny Indra Irawan, the airport’s senior service manager.

Danny said passengers in the following days would be largely students and private company workers, who would begin their daily routines on Monday.

The Jakarta administration had predicted that a total of more than 7.1 million people made trips home, a 9.62 percent increase on last year’s figure.

Only 1.39 million used public transportation for their homeward journeys, with the other 5.93 million using private vehicles.