T

he Jakarta Police has suggested that measures be taken to control the increase in private vehicles in a bid to tackle road congestion in Jakarta, which has the world'€™s worst traffic according to a recent study.

Sr. Comr. Budiyanto, head of law enforcement of the Jakarta Police'€™s traffic division, said the increase in the number of private vehicles in the capital and other big cities of Indonesia had been uncontrollable so far and was not on par with the increase in roads, making traffic congestion inevitable.

'€œMotor vehicles have overloaded the roads,'€ Budiyanto told the The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

According to police data, the number of private vehicles in Jakarta grows by around 7 to 9 percent a year, while the total length of roads increases by just 0.01 percent. The police counted 18,668,056 vehicles in greater Jakarta in 2015, up 7 percent from the previous year.

Traffic congestion has become a big issue in the city of 10 million people and 3 million commuters. Traffic in the capital is so bad that it doesn'€™t only occur on specific roads but almost all roads.

In an index of the world'€™s worst traffic released last year by British lubricant company Castrol, Jakarta became the king of traffic as it topped the index.

The index used data shared anonymously by millions of TomTom navigation device users around the globe to measure the average stops and starts made per kilometer within each city.

According to the survey, which examined traffic conditions in 78 cities and regions around the globe, the Indonesian capital ranked as the city with the highest number of stops and starts, with an average of 33,240 per driver per year. Jakarta was followed by Istanbul in Turkey with 32,520 stops and starts per year, while Mexico City came third with 30,840.

Institute for Transportation Studies (Instran) director Darmaningtyas said there was no way to tackle the capital'€™s long-standing traffic issue except for regulations that make people think twice before purchasing a vehicle.

The regulations, he said, should include raising vehicle and fuel prices as well as increasing tax rates and parking fees.

'€œThe government should increase these components all at the same time,'€ he said, adding that fuel prices and parking fees in Indonesia were among the lowest in Asia.

'€œCar loans in this country are also among the cheapest and easiest in Asia,'€ he said.

Darmaningtyas added that the government should make credit arrangement for a vehicle a bit more complicated and expensive, and it should put aside the idea of losing profit on the selling of vehicles.

'€œIn fact, our automotive industry developed only in this decade. In the past, the industry was not growing like it is today, but our economy was still good and improving,'€ he explained.

'€œBesides, it seems the automotive industry benefits us in the sense that it employs many workers, but in fact we also spend much in fuel, because of the traffic congestion it causes. We will even suffer more losses if we allow traffic congestion to remain in this city.'€

The city administration had so far not been serious in controlling private vehicle ownership, as evidenced by lenient enforcement of a 2014 city regulation on transportation, he said.

Article 140 of the regulation stipulates that any individual or entity owning a vehicle is required to have a garage.

'€œThe regulation requires everyone to prove that he or she has a garage when purchasing a vehicle. But the administration never communicates the regulation, let alone enforce it,'€ explained Darmaningtyas.

'€œNow you can see that many people own a car but do not have a garage. As a result, they park their car on the side of the road, causing even more congestion.'€