M

arzuki has been sitting in his parked light blue angkot (public minivan) at the Lebak Bulus bus terminal, South Jakarta, for the last hour.

He holds a lit cigarette in his right hand and the steering wheel in his left. The 45-year-old is ready to ply the public minivan’s route.

Except he has no passengers.

Over the last two years Marzuki has noticed that the number of passengers traveling on the C14 angkot on the Lebak Bulus-Ciledug, Tangerang, route has dwindled.

The decreasing number of passengers has inevitably slashed drivers’ incomes and prompted many to quit their jobs.

Marzuki said on Tuesday that two years ago, 37 C14 angkot plied the route every day. Recently, the number slumped to 12.

Most of the drivers quit as the income no longer covered operational costs, he said.

“It’s a very strange situation, there are fewer angkot on the streets, yet we still struggle to find passengers,” he said.

The Jakarta administration introduced angkot to Jakarta streets in 1980 in order to replace dilapidated oplet cars.

Angkot soon became the backbone of public transportation due to its large numbers and low fare. Easy to obtain route licenses for angkot resulted in tough competition that in turn led a drop in vehicle quality and overlapping routes.

Three decades later, fierce competition with the recently popular app-based modes of transportation and Transjakarta buses, plus the notorious image of the angkot drivers as well as the aging vehicles have driven angkot passengers away.

The increasing number of motorcycles is also considered to have played a major role in the dwindling business of angkot, which is an abbreviation for angkutan perkotaan (urban transportation).

Jakarta Traffic Police data from 2015 reveals that 4,000 to 4,500 motorcycles hit the city every day, making Jakarta home to 13.1 million motorcycles, a steep increase from 8 million in 2010.

“Everyone takes a motorcycle for daily short trips and for longer distances they take a Transjakarta bus,” Humaiyah, a driver of an angkot plying the Pasar Jumat-Pondok Labu, South Jakarta, route, said. “I’m afraid that we will lose our share of this route.”

However, her worst fear will happen sooner or later as Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has taken an unfriendly stance toward angkot, which he claims is one of the main causes of congestion on the roads of the capital.

“Eventually, I don’t want to see any more angkot in this city; let them operate on the outskirts,” Ahok told reporters in February.

The Jakarta Organization of Land Transportation Owners (Organda) has acknowledged that angkot are losing the “war of the penny” on Jakarta streets and change must happen to keep them in business. He said that with construction of the mass rapid transit and the light rail transit under way, competition would soon get tougher.

Shafruhan Sinungan, the organization’s chairman, said Jakartans had high expectations of public transportation and angkot did not meet them.

“We are discussing angkot improvement so they can offer better services,” he told The Jakarta Post.

“But we still have a long way to go.”