The problem is that the Jakarta Transportation Agency, responsible for managing the traffic light system, often takes a long time to fix them. Why does it take so long for the agency to take action? The answer is: This megapolitan city still uses out-of-date traffic light technology.

Head of the agency’s traffic management M. Akbar has said that any traffic light malfunction could not be fixed immediately because the city no longer operates  centralized traffic light management. With such a condition, he said his office relied too much on reports from the public or police officers over any malfunction of traffic lights prior to taking action.

“We used to operate an integrated control center that managed all city traffic lights in 1975, 1992 … And the last time was two or three years ago before the communication network malfunctioned and we ran out of funds to fix it,” Akbar was quoted by this newspaper as saying Thursday.

Such an excuse by Akbar that the city “ran out of funds to fix it” is ridiculous. It is hard to understand that the city administration has no money to fix such a vital traffic infrastructure.

The question is: If the city was able to operate a centralized traffic light system in the 70s and 90s, why can’t the city operate it now? Where does the taxpayers’ money generated from vehicle licensing and document processing fees — the amount is about 40 percent of the Rp 24 trillion (US$2.5 billion) of the city budget this year — go?

Such a sluggish response to fix malfunctioned traffic lights is blatant evidence that the city authorities are not serious about easing traffic problems. We regret that the city leadership — the governor and his staff as well as the city councilors — do not allocate adequate funds to modernize the traffic lights, one vital piece of traffic infrastructure in a great city like Jakarta.

Any malfunction of the instrument will undoubtedly worsen the traffic chaos in the city, particularly if it cannot be immediately fixed. According to Akbar, the absence of such an integrated system causes a malfunction at each traffic junction — thus is unable to transfer information from one junction to another.

It is understandable that motorists often complain about unfair periods of traffic light changes, particularly at junctions that are not equipped with countdown timers.

We welcome any effort to ease the problems as Jakartan motorists have long been suffering from daily traffic congestion in the morning and evening peak hours.

We know that there are many things the city must do to ease traffic, including efforts to improve the service of public transportation, which many believe is the key in fixing the city transportation problems.

But it is also not less important to facilitate motorists with modern traffic infrastructure such as an integrated traffic light system, so that any malfunction can immediately be detected and fixed. That is one example of what taxpayers’ money should be spent on.

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