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ommuters in Jakarta say they can do little but accept state toll road operator PT Jasa Marga’s move to increase toll fees, but have called on the company to improve its service.

Starting Friday, commuters in the Greater Jakarta area will have to spend between Rp 500 (5 US cents) and Rp 2,500 more to travel on the city’s network of toll roads, after Jasa Marga raised its fees based on the Sept. 27 Public Works Ministerial Decree, which stipulated price increases for 12 toll roads nationwide.

Seven toll roads in the city will be affected by the decree.

Commuters were mostly negative about the new rates and called on Jasa Marga to improve its services to compensate for the raise.

“The law says that the government can raise toll fees every year. What can you do about that? Stage a protest against it? I think people are just too tired to do that,” Dodi Ibnu Rusydi, a manager at a multinational company living in Bumi Serpong Damai (BSD), told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Dodi, who works in Senayan, Central Jakarta, takes the BSD toll road into the city every morning, exiting at the Tanah Kusir toll gate, at a cost of Rp 6,000 in tolls. Starting Friday, he will have to pay Rp 7,000.

He said that the BSD toll road was the most convenient way to reach Jakarta, and that there was no credible alternative. “Without the toll road I would have to drive through Ciputat and get stuck in several congested spots. BSD residents working in Jakarta have almost no other choice but to use the toll road,” he said.

Yetta Angelina, a resident of Jati Bening, Bekasi, in West Java, who commutes everyday to downtown Jakarta, said she was not happy about having to pay higher toll road fees because the Jakarta Inner City Toll Road was always congested.

“Once I enter the Jakarta Inner City Toll Road I am always stuck. It’s more like a parking lot than a freeway,” she told the Post, adding that she had to spend at least Rp 19,000 a day on toll fees.

Congestion on the toll road is worse when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s motorcade uses it, she said.

“It gets worse when I leave my house at the same time as the President leaves his residence in Cikeas, Bogor. I can be trapped on the toll road for half an hour or more,” Yetta said, adding that Jasa Marga had made no apparent efforts to help commuters.

“I have an e-Toll card, but I rarely use it because only a few gates have the card reader. Jasa Marga still has a lot of things to work on,” she said.

Adrianto, who regularly travels on the Jakarta Inner Ring Road, also said that Jasa Marga needed to improve its service.

“For example, Jasa Marga said that tow trucks go free, but in reality it is not free for them at all,”
he said. (swd)