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Mudik traffic past its peak: Govt
Some 477,000 vehicles have left Jakarta for mudik over the past week
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Motorists throng a road in Nagreg, West Java, on April 30, 2022, as people head to their hometowns to celebrate Idul Fitri, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. (Agence France-Presse/Timur Matahari)
T
he authorities have said that the peak in traffic of millions of homebound Indonesians departing to their hometowns to spend the Idul Fitri holiday with families and relatives, a tradition known as mudik (exodus), has now passed.
The government expected some 85 million people to perform mudik this year – the first time since the pandemic started that travelers have been allowed to do so – with some 23 million cars and 17 million motorcycles forecast to hit the road over the course of the holiday.
The Transportation Ministry’s directorate general for land transportation’s director for land traffic, Cucu Mulyana, said on Saturday that Friday saw some 105,000 cars, mostly from Jakarta, crowding the trans-Java toll road, which connects the capital all the way to East Java.
Friday’s traffic, Cucu said, broke the previous mudik record of 103,000 cars on the trans-Java toll road during the 2019 Idul Fitri holidays.
Friday’s traffic was also a 165 percent increase on last year’s mudik traffic, which saw just under 40,000 vehicles crowding the highways amid a government imposed inter-city travel ban.
“The [government’s] prediction for the peak of traffic to be three days before Idul Fitri [which will likely fall on Monday], turned out to be correct,” Cucu said, as quoted by Kompas.
Also on Saturday, state-owned toll road operator PT Jasa Marga’s corporate communication and community development group head Dwimawan Heru said that traffic on the trans-Java toll road would begin letting up on Sunday, particularly since only 20 percent of holidaymakers who were expected to make the mudik trip had not left by Saturday.
