Hundreds of Jakartans queued at the Transportation Ministry'€™s office to take advantage of its provision of free Idul Fitri exodus transportation for motorcyclists on Tuesday.

Oti Ruqiyah, from Bekasi in West Java, said that she and her husband had gone straight to the ministry'€™s office after her daughter informed her about the holiday transportation program. '€œWe will go to Lampung at Idul Fitri because my mother-in-law lives alone there and she expects us to visit her,'€ she told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

During the annual exodus millions of people in Jakarta depart for their hometowns to celebrate the holiday with their families, creating massive traffic jams across Java and Sumatra.

To anticipate the mass exodus for this year'€™s Idul Fitri, the ministry said that it would accommodate 27,100 people and 17,100 motorcycles on buses, trucks, trains and ships. Registration for the programs runs from July 1 to July 16.

The trains will serve the Jakarta-Semarang and Jakarta-Cirebon routes, while buses will serve nine routes to various cities in Java such as Wonogiri, Magelang, Cilacap and Solo in Central Java.

The government is also set to provide two ships to serve the Tanjung Priok (North Jakarta) to Tanjung Emas (Semarang), and the Tanjung Priok to Panjang (Bandarlampung) routes.

Oti added that she appreciated the program because she and her husband could save a substantial amount of money. However, she complained about the long lines that had caused her to queue from morning to get her name on the list.

Heri Sutrisno, who planned to go to Wonogiri in Central Java on buses provided by the ministry, also complained about having to wait in line.

'€œI have been here for three hours, but they have yet to call my name. It seems that I will have to inform my boss that I will not return to the office today,'€ he said showing his number, which was still far from the last number called by the Transportation Ministry staff.

Heri said that he was upbeat about this year'€™s Idul Fitri because he would see his three children at his mother'€™s house in Wonogiri, where they lived more cheaply than they could in Jakarta.

He added that his trip would be much faster by bus rather than by motorcycle. '€œWith the bus I can arrive in my hometown in just 16 hours, while by motorcycle it would take more than 20 hours,'€ he said.

Many people planned to bring their motorcycles to get around to visit their relatives in their hometowns.

Transportation ministry spokesperson Andravida Barata said that besides providing free transportation, the program was also aimed at reducing the number of motorcycle accidents during the holiday exodus.

He said last year'€™s program had successfully reduced the number of such accidents. He added that the government had tried to raise people'€™s awareness that motorcycles were not safe for long-distance journeys, but there were still a lot of people using them for the exodus.

'€œThis is the fourth year we'€™ve run this program and we will likely maintain it in order to provide people with safe travel during the Idul Fitri holiday,'€ he said. (idb)

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