L

ess than a week after opening new TransJakarta routes, the city Transportation Agency decided to make a radical change by dividing corridor 9 into three parts — a move that could only result from bad planning, according to some authorities.

The new measure was aimed at improving service to passengers, the Transportation Agency said on Tuesday.

“At 28.8 kilometers, corridor 9 is too long for operators to serve it efficiently,” agency head Udar Pristono said on Tuesday.

Pristono said corridor 9, stretching from Pinang Ranti in East Jakarta to Pluit in North Jakarta, will be divided into three sub-routes, Pinang Ranti – Cililitan, Cililitan – Grogol and Grogol – Pluit.

The Transportation Agency justified its decision from statistics it had collected showing that most passengers using corridor 9 only travel between Cililitan and Grogol.

Pristono also said that the division would help boost efficiency. “By dividing the route into three parts, more buses will be allocated to the loops with more passengers. This will also help reduce the number of passengers crowding the busway shelters,” he said.

Corridor 9 was one of two new TransJakarta routes — the other one being corridor 10 connecting Cililitan and Tanjung Priok — that were launched on Dec. 31.

TransJakarta has 69 buses and eight articulated buses currently serving corridor 9, while only five articulated buses ply corridor 10. The agency has yet to dispatch more articulated buses for corridor 10.

Pristono said the time intervals between two buses’ traveling in the same direction on the same route ranged from 5 minutes to 30 minutes in corridor 9, and 5 minutes to 15 minutes in corridor 10.

“Buses in corridor 9 frequently get stuck in traffic in areas like the West Jakarta Municipal office in Grogol, Tomang, Slipi and Kramat Jati,” he said.

Executive chairman of the Indonesian Public Policy Society Riant Nugroho said the decision to reroute corridor 9 indicated bad planning on the part of the city administration.

“If the corridor needs to be divided into sub-routes, the administration should have done it in the planning stage, not after the route has been launched,” Riant said.

He said that this glitch should prompt the city government to conduct a thorough examination of the whole TransJakarta network.

“If a route is too long, it is less effective because it translates into fewer bus trips. This in turn would induce motorists to occupy the busway lanes as they would see the lane is less-travelled and even deserted,” Riant said.

Beside the two new routes, TransJakarta already has eight routes working: corridor 1 running from Blok M to Kota, corridor 2 from Pulogadung to Harmoni, corridor 3 from Kalideres to Harmoni, corridor 4 from Pulogadung to Dukuh Atas, corridor 5 from Kampung Melayu to Ancol, corridor 6 from Ragunan to Kuningan, corridor 7 from Kampung Melayu to Kampung Rambutan and corridor 8 from Lebak Bulus to Harmoni.

Currently, there are a total of 502 buses serving the 10 routes. According to the Indonesian Consumers Foundation, more than 152,000 people use TransJakarta buses every day.