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Ahok set on electronic road pricing
Pay and pass: Scores of vehicles pass under electronic road pricing (ERP) equipment on Jl
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Pay and pass: Scores of vehicles pass under electronic road pricing (ERP) equipment on Jl. Rasuna Said in Kuningan, South Jakarta, on Tuesday. Jakarta's Public Transportation Agency will trial the ERP system on Jl. Rasuna Said on Sept. 30. (JP/don)
Jakarta Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama insists that his administration will soon implement electronic road pricing (ERP) despite opposition from Jakarta City Police chief Insp. Gen. Tito Karnavian who said that the city is not ready for the traffic restriction system.
According to Ahok, ERP is the best way for Jakarta to restrict the use of private vehicles ' cars and motorcycles ' in the city. He said that other alternatives, like an odd-even license plate policy, had failed in other cities.
The objective of ERP and other policies is to discourage people from driving their cars and motorcycles on city roads that are consistently overcrowded with private vehicles, particularly during morning and evening peak hours.
'In our opinion, ERP is better. The odd-even license plate policy has failed in Manila,' Ahok said on Thursday as reported by bertitajakarta.com. The governor said that the tender of ERP procurement was to start this year, but he had not yet received reports from the City Communication and Transportation Agency on the project's progress.
Tito said on Wednesday that Jakarta was not ready to apply the ERP system because it did not have valid data on vehicle ownership because many cars had been sold by their owners without reporting the transfer of ownership to the police.
'If the ERP is applied, motorists will have to pay ERP fees when they enter the ERP gate. The police will not be able to detect the cars that have been sold by their owners and therefore the ERP bill will go to the previous owner,' Tito was quoted by tribunnews.com.
According to Tito, ERP would also cause worsening traffic congestion on the roads around where it is applied because many motorists would find alternative roads. Tito called on the city administration to improve public transportation services before the ERP is applied.
The Jakarta city administration has been implementing trials for the ERP system since last year. ERP gates are installed on Jl. Sudirman and Jl. HR Rasuna Said in South Jakarta by two different companies from Sweden and Norway. The administration has also distributed dozens of on-board-unit (OBU) devises to cars owners who frequently pass through those two points. (bbn)(++++)
