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'Traffic hunters' to decongest capital on bikes
(JP/DONA)A thankless task: Jakarta Traffic Police officers manage the flow of traffic on Jl
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(JP/DONA)
A thankless task: Jakarta Traffic Police officers manage the flow of traffic on Jl. MH Thamrin in Jakarta on Friday. The capital's police recently established a special team to curb traffic congestion at critical points during peak traffic hours.
In the nation's capital city, notorious for heavy traffic jams, the Jakarta Traffic Police have recently formed a 'traffic hunting team' to tackle gridlocks in the main traffic hotspots.
Traffic police director Sr. Comr. Restu Mulya Budiyanto told The Jakarta Post that the new team of 60 officers would scour Jakarta's traffic with their newly acquired bikes and trail motorcycles throughout the day.
'It is easier to maneuver through the streets by bicycle because we can go on the sidewalks, while trail motorcycles are sleeker than the older ones,' he said.
'We have changed our mode of transportation to make it easier for the team members to go to the locations of congestion faster and to check out the causes. Once we understand what's going on, we try to take control of the situation and also immediately inform the traffic management center at the Jakarta Police headquarters [in South Jakarta],' he said.
He said that the members would also be equipped with police batons and torches with extra batteries.
Restu explained that the Jakarta Traffic Police stationed five personnel each in Bunderan Senayan (South Jakarta), the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle (Central Jakarta), Dukuh Atas (Central Jakarta) and on the roads near the Plaza Semanggi shopping mall (South Jakarta) for two shifts between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., which was extended to midnight on weekends. However, each precinct police station will also deploy around 20 personnel to deal with areas of concern within its jurisdiction.
'Traffic jams are caused by many different things, such as bottlenecking, accidents or even just an increase in the volume of cars,' he said.
According to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), Jakarta's official population reached 9.6 million
in 2010.
However, the City Population and Civil Registry Agency said that Jakarta's daytime population reached 12 million because many people from the city's surrounding areas worked in the capital.
Therefore, Restu said, the team would get more active during rush hour in the morning when people were commuting to work and in the evening when people were returning home.
The team was also responsible for making sure that the public was informed about the locations and causes of traffic jams.
The police were encouraged to take a picture of the cause of a traffic jam and send it to the traffic management center so that it could immediately upload the reason and an image of the cause on their official Twitter feed (@TMCPoldaMetro), he said.
On Friday morning between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., the roads around the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle were packed with cars, but they kept moving slowly with no signs of a standstill occurring. Several traffic police officers were seen standing at the side of the road with their trail motorcycles parked and they were directing the traffic to make sure that none of the cars moved too slowly.
The situation was similar in Dukuh Atas and on the roads near the Plaza Semanggi shopping mall. However, bicycles were not present at any of the places observed by the Post.
Winandryo Anggianto, who works at a government institution located in Central Jakarta, told the Post that he occasionally saw members of the new team on their bikes and trail motorcycles.
'I usually see them around the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle. However, I only see some of them on bicycles in the afternoon and some others on trail bikes at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.,' he said.
Winandryo acknowledged that the traffic police officers helped make the traffic move a little faster when the roads were packed. However, he also said that they seemed like they were still confused about how to decongest traffic jams.
'They don't seem very active at the moment and are still a little disorganized. I haven't really felt much of a difference in traffic since they were established,' he said. (fss)
