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n a bid to generate more income, the city administration has plans to install parking meters in the Jl. Sabang business district in Central Jakarta in September as a pilot project before implementing the new parking system across the capital.

The Transportation Agency'€™s Parking Technical Unit head Sunardi Sinaga said on Monday that his department had held discussions with all the parking attendants in that business district and familiarized them with the new system.

'€œWe will install 11 parking meters along the road,'€ he added.

Sunardi explained that the parking attendants would no longer collect money. They would only make sure motorists abide by the new parking rules.

'€œMotorists will directly pay into the parking meters with Rp 1,000 (8 US cent) and Rp 500 coins,'€ he said, adding that his unit would also provide nearby exchange facilities.

Sunardi said that, consequently, the parking tariff would change. '€œThe tariff will be a flat Rp 5,000 per hour for a car and Rp 2,000 per hour for a motorcycle,'€ he said.

He said the city'€™s income from parking in the business district was quite small.

He cited parking attendants on Jl. Sabang, for example, who collect only Rp 700,000 per day, or Rp 21 million per month.

'€œAccording to our research the total parking revenue from the business district was around Rp 400 million per month,'€ he said.

The Transportation Agency recorded that the city administration had received only Rp 26 billion in monthly revenue from the parking sector.

'€œThe city administration has suffered losses of hundreds of billions of rupiah every month from the parking sector under the current payment system,'€ he said.

Sunardi said the parking attendants would no longer be allowed to collect money from motorists. '€œWe will also install CCTV cameras on main streets. If we find out any parking attendants collecting money from motorists, we will fire them directly,'€ he said.

He said all parking attendants would be paid monthly. '€œWe have yet to set their monthly salary, but it will be as high as the monthly provincial minimum wage,'€ he said. The minimum wage in Jakarta is Rp 2.4 million.

He added that the placement of vehicles on parking sites would also be regulated. '€œWe provide five spots, one in the middle and one on each corner of the road, for motorcycles and the rest would be for cars,'€ he said.

Sunardi said his unit would evaluate the parking meters after three months and would implement the same system on another 19 busy streets, including Jl. Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta and Jl. Gadjah Mada in West Jakarta.

A 56-year-old parking attendant on Jl. Sabang, Safrudin Zein, said he agreed with the city'€™s plan as long as he was well paid. '€œIf I could choose, I like the existing system, but if the administration wants to change it, I will abide by it,'€ he said.