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consortium of local investors has put forth a proposal to build an alternative to the monorail project called '€œMetro Kapsul'€.

Consortium representatives met with Governor Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo at City Hall on Monday to present their proposal and explain the project'€™s advantages.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, consortium representative Djoni Rosadi said that the Metro Kapsul, an elevated mode of mass transportation, would require only Rp 114 billion (US$10.03 million) per kilometer in investment, relatively less than the monorail proposed by consortium PT Jakarta Monorail.

PT JM'€™s 30-kilometer-long monorail will cost at least $1.5 billion.

'€œMetro Kapsul is smaller in terms of size so it would not need as much space,'€ Djoni said.

The Metro Kapsul would be powered by electricity, was not noisy and was environmentally friendly, he explained. '€œIt is of light construction and many of the components are prefabricated so that the construction time would be shorter,'€ he pointed out.

According to the proposal, Metro Kapsul cars would be 2.2 meters in width, 2.8 meters in height and 9 meters in length and have the capacity to carry 50 people per trip. The cars would not be operated by drivers.

Djoni said the consortium proposed establishing new routes for the Metro Kapsul.

'€œWe don'€™t want to build along the monorail route. There are many routes in the capital that need the Metro Kapsul,'€ he said, pointing out that the consortium had proposed the Taman Mini Indah Indonesia-airport and Senayan-airport routes.

The consortium consists of four companies with different fields of work, including automotive, road construction and technology. It also involved experts from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) as consultants.

Separately, Jokowi acknowledged that he was interested in the proposal. '€œIt costs less than the monorail. We want to see the product so it might take a while,'€ he said.

'€œIt looks simple and the construction also seems simple. The pillars are small and we could easily manage the headway between cars,'€ he added.

When asked about whether the project would be halted should he be elected president and leave City Hall, Jokowi said, '€œEvery project should be started and anyone could take over and see it through to completion. It would be even easier to monitor such a transportation project [if he were president] as Jakarta'€™s transportation system can'€™t be separated from that of satellite cities.'€

Jokowi said he had yet to determine whether the project would be funded privately or by the city administration. '€œThey only just presented the proposal. I have yet to think that far ahead,'€ he said.

Jokowi also pointed out that the city administration aimed to start the construction of three new Transjakarta corridors this year.

'€œWe will open the project tender sometime soon,'€ he said.