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Most Jakartans back home as holiday comes to end
By any means: Hundreds of passengers arrive at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, from various cities on Sunday
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By any means:: Hundreds of passengers arrive at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, from various cities on Sunday. Hundreds of thousands of people were scheduled to arrive in Jakarta on Sunday by ship, plane, car, bus, motorcycle or even bajaj (three-wheeled taxis) after spending their Idul Fitri holidays in their villages and towns. (JP/Wendra Ajistyatama) (three-wheeled taxis) after spending their Idul Fitri holidays in their villages and towns. (JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)
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span class="inline inline-center">By any means: Hundreds of passengers arrive at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, from various cities on Sunday. Hundreds of thousands of people were scheduled to arrive in Jakarta on Sunday by ship, plane, car, bus, motorcycle or even bajaj (three-wheeled taxis) after spending their Idul Fitri holidays in their villages and towns. (JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)
Jakarta's traffic is returning to normal, as most residents who left the capital for their hometowns to celebrate Idul Fitri have now arrived in the city to resume their daily routines.
Tens of thousands of residents arrived in Jakarta via Gambir railway station in Central Jakarta from Saturday morning, while around 25,000 passengers arrived in Kampung Rambutan bus station in East Jakarta from Sunday afternoon.
Kampung Rambutan bus station officials predicted a total number of 40,000 passengers would arrive at the station as of early Monday.
'Between 11,000 and 12,000 passengers have arrived daily since Friday through 30 different schedules and four extra trains that we operated,' Gambir railway station deputy chief Rizki Afrida said at the railway station on Sunday.
Rizki said the number showed the maximum capacity of all business- and executive-class trains connecting Jakarta and various cities on Java operated by state-owned railway operator PT KAI.
'We won't see the figure [of arriving passengers] exceeding 12,000 because that's the maximum capacity of all the regular and additional trains combined,' she cited.
Rizki acknowledged there was an increase in the number of passengers using their services.
'We saw an 18-percent increase in the total number of passengers this Idul Fitri compared to the holiday season last year as we operated more trains this year. Last year, we operated 25 regular trains and two additional trains,' she said.
Rizki added that to meet increasing demand for train travel, this year PT KAI was operating extra trains until Sunday.
'All tickets to return to Jakarta on Monday have been sold out but tickets to Jakarta for Tuesday and the days after are still available,' she said.
Soekarno Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, recorded more than 20,000 passengers landing at the airport on 116 domestic flights and another 1,261 passengers via seven additional flights as of Sunday afternoon.
The figure was expected to increase significantly on Sunday night as more flights arrived.
Meanwhile, private vehicles and other means of public transportation snarled up traffic on the Cipularang toll road and Nagreg highway in Bandung regency, West Java ' though which vehicles from cities on Java traveling along the north coast, would reach Jakarta and Bandung over the weekend.
According to the Transportation Ministry, the number of exodus vacationers traveling by train across the country increased by 18.38 percent to 3.43 million passengers from 2.9 million during the Idul Fitri holiday season last year.
The ministry also recorded a 6.27-percent increase in the number of passengers traveling by air to 237,918 passengers this year from 211,527 passengers in the same period last year.
To anticipate a high number of arrivals in Jakarta's bus and railway stations on Sunday and early on Monday, the Jakarta Transportation Agency has instructed inner-city bus operators to extend their operational hours until early on Monday.
'Residents returning to Jakarta by bus usually arrive between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. and they need public buses or minivans to get home,' agency head M. Akbar said as quoted by kompas.com.
Akbar pointed out that the extension only applied to popular routes, including Kampung Rambutan-Blok M, Kampung Rambutan-Pasar Minggu, Kalideres-Pluit, Kalideres-Grogol and Pulogadung-Tanjung Priok.
