A recent study released by the Jakarta Transportation Council (DTKJ), reveals that the total number of passengers taking Transjakarta buses between January and April this year declined compared to the same period last year, a number that according to the council reflected the decreasing quality of service.

DTKJ Head Ellen S. Tangkudung said Monday that there were 34.1 million Transjakarta passengers between January and April this year, down 8.5 percent from 37.3 million between January and April in 2014.

'€œAt the same time, we also received various complaints from passengers about Transjakarta service,'€ Ellen told reporters during a press conference at DTKJ office in Central Jakarta.

From the lack of enforcement to keep Transjakarta lanes clear of other traffic, to the lack of a defined schedule for the arrival of buses and to the lack of help from officers for disabled people, passengers said Transjakarta shows no signs of quality improvement.

Bagus Supriyanto, an activist with the Association of Visually Impaired People (Pertuni), said he felt that officers who were stationed either onboard Transjakarta buses or in bus shelters were not as responsive to disabled people as they used to be.

'€œA few years ago the officers would help me to enter the bus and find a seat as soon as they noticed that I was blind, but it doesn'€™t happen a lot now. Most of them are just talking with each other,'€ Bagus told The Jakarta Post.

He added that some speaker systems that were installed in the buses to give audible information on the bus location were broken. '€œTherefore, I have to ask other passengers about our location,'€ he said.

Another passenger, Olivia, took a picture of a Transjakarta bus driver who was using his smartphone when he was driving the bus. '€œIt made for an unpleasant trip as he hit the brakes over and over,'€ she said Monday as quoted by kompas.com.

According to Olivia, the passengers reprimanded him, but their complaints fell on deaf ears as the driver kept using the smartphone.

Having taken over the operation of Transjakarta buses on Jan. 1 from an operational unit at the City Transportation Agency, PT Transportasi Jakarta (Transjakarta) was expected to improve services and fulfill the minimum standards set for land transportation.

However, DTKJ considers there to be a lot of sectors that needed to be improved by the bus operator.

During Monday'€™s conference, Ellen said Transjakarta must apply a number of improvements in service, such as by adjusting the total number of buses deployed with the number of passengers waiting in bus shelters to avoid passenger congestion.

Furthermore, she said that other ideas, such as adding more passing lanes by several busy bus shelters for time efficiency, integrating the buses with other public transportation in Greater Jakarta and creating a more disabled-friendly environment, should also be taken into consideration.

'€œIf they do not increase the quality, we are afraid that there would be many people switching from taking Transjakarta buses to private transportation,'€ she said.

Separately, Steve Kosasih, president director of the Transjakarta operator, said the company had taken over the management less than a year ago and added that a lot of things would be improved in the near future.

'€œIn this first half of the year we still focused on revamping our system and coordinated over related regulations with the Jakarta Administration,'€ he said.

Kosasih said he believed that in the year'€™s second half, the company would be able to add 500 to 1,000 buses to expand its service. He added that Transjakarta had also begun talks with state-owned railway company PT KAI to integrate Transjakarta shelters with train stations.

'€œWe are certain that things will be much better in the second half of the year,'€ he said.

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