T

he electronic ticketing system that will be installed by city-owned PT Transjakarta has sparked vocal protests from passengers, due to the additional fares they will have to pay to ride on feeder buses.

Irawan Prayoga, a 31-year-old civil servant with the city administration, said he objected to the extra fares.

'€œThey should have found a better way to integrate the ticketing system and not pass the costs onto passengers,'€ he said.

Passengers will be required to pay Rp 3,500 (30 US cents) with their e-tickets to take a Transjakarta bus, and Rp 5,000 to use a feeder bus, including public and Kopaja buses.

Irawan, who takes a Kopaja minibus from Ragunan in South Jakarta to the National Monument (Monas) park in Central Jakarta every day, said paying the extra Rp 7,000 would be too costly for him.

He added, however, that there was the option to switch to other buses, so that he would not have to spend too much more for his daily commute.

'€œTransjakarta also has buses serving the same route. I originally chose the Kopaja buses because their headway is shorter, but I think I'€™ll switch to Transjakarta so that I only have to pay once,'€ he said.

The implementation of the new system, which is slated for Aug. 11, will require passengers to buy an e-ticket to enter a busway shelter, as well as an additional fare if they take non-Transjakarta public buses that use the busway.

By paying Rp 5,000, passengers will have access to Transjakarta, feeder, Kopaja and Kopami buses.

Sari Monik Agustin, a 38-year-old lecturer, echoed Irawan, saying most people had no objection to the e-ticketing system, but only if it did not become a financial burden to passengers.

Monik said she had no plans to take the feeder buses or shift to other public transportation. '€œIt would be cheaper if I buy a return ticket on a Metromini bus, which only costs Rp 6,000,'€ she said.

Monik, who usually travels to her office at Al-Azhar University in Kebayoran Baru from her boarding house in Fatmawati, both in South Jakarta, said it was unfair to charge her extra for only taking one bus.

'€œWhy does the management want to introduce a policy that hurts passengers? The city administration should have to handle the extra costs, not the passengers,'€ she said.

Eleven feeder- and public-bus routes are integrated with the Transjakarta bus network.

Transjakarta president director Antonius Nicholas Stefanus Kosasih said the company was trying to formulate the best mechanism to integrate the e-ticketing system, so as not to burden passengers.

'€œWe need to discuss the matter thoroughly with all Kopaja and Kopami operators,'€ he said.

Kosasih said all the operators would ideally become integrated with Transjakarta. '€œAll bus operations should be under the coordination of Transjakarta, with each using the same policy: That the bus fares are set on a kilometer basis and the drivers are paid monthly,'€ he said.

He added that with the current system, it was hard to achieve minimum service standards.

Transjakarta will be introducing the new e-ticketing system along Corridor I, which goes from Blok M in South Jakarta to Kota in West Jakarta, with 11 bus stops along the route.

Antonius said electronic ticketing would gradually be implemented along all corridors, while passengers would be required to purchase e-tickets as of Aug. 19. He added that passengers would be offered free e-tickets during a trial period on Aug. 11-18.

'€œPassengers will have to buy e-tickets after Aug. 18,'€ he said.

More than 270,000 e-tickets have already been sold, but only 25 percent of Transjakarta'€™s 350,000 passengers have used them.