But the busway is still the only feasible project to ease the frustrating traffic congestion. Unlike other alternative solutions — monorail, subway and water transportation – whose share in helping ease the city’s traffic have not been tested, the busway has helped influence many motorists to leave their cars at home and use its service to their working places, reducing the number of cars on the city’s streets on a daily basis.

The busway is a victim of the half-hearted commitment of city authorities. Road users blame it for seizing one road lane that undeniably worsens traffic congestion. Its customers complain that it has failed to serve them well as they have to queue for long periods of time at bus stops and once inside, the buses are very crowded.

The city administration’s move to expel private vehicles from busway lanes from Monday (Aug. 2, 2010) has received strong opposition from motorists. The police, however, persisted. On the first day of the crackdown, they issued tickets to more than one thousand motorists for violating the policy.

On some occasions, however, police officers were hesitant to prevent motorists from entering certain busway lanes because they knew how congested regular lanes were.

We are now waiting for serious commitment from policy makers, particularly the city administration and the city legislative council, in implementing a time schedule to fully operate the 10 existing busway corridors, which had cost hundreds of billions of rupiah of taxpayers’ money for their construction. Two of the corridors are not in operation yet, while the others, except Corridor I for the Blok M-Kota route, suffer a serious bus shortage.

In order to optimize the busway service, the city administration must deploy buses in all corridors. Procuring more buses should be the highest priority of the city administration. It can either use taxpayers’ money or invite private companies to invest in this.

The administration must also maintain punctuality of its timetable. Ideally, a bus should arrive at a stop every five minutes, but currently people wait for more than 30 minutes.

Lastly, the city administration must make maximum use of the already constructed busway lanes. Currently some lanes are unused, tempting other road users to occupy them.

The full operation of the TransJakarta busway, whose networks cover a vast territory across the city, is expected to provide public transport users with reliable, affordable and convenient transportation. At the same time, the city administration can begin applying traffic measures such as electronic road pricing (ERP), in its attempt to reduce vehicle population on Jakarta’s streets.

It is the city administration’s responsibility to provide the public with mass, but affordable and convenient modes of transportation, and concurrently attempt to ease the acute traffic congestion. And we still believe that the busway can meet its objectives.

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