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ollowing in the steps of transportation cooperative Kopaja, a number of bus operators have jumped ship to join city-owned bus operator PT Transportasi Jakarta (Transjakarta), by listing their services in the National Procurement Agency'€™s (LKPP) e-catalog.

Jakarta Transportation Agency head Andri Yansyah said that all six integrated bus network (APTB) operators '€” Perum PPD, PT Bianglala Metropolitan, PT Mayasari Bakti, PT Sinar Jaya Megah Langgeng, PT Hiba Utama and PT Agra Mas '€” had eventually agreed to join Transjakarta after a year of tortuous discussions and negotiations.

'€œAll APTB operators have finally agreed to join Transjakarta. They'€™ll list their services with the LKPP soon,'€ Andri told reporters at City Hall on Friday.

A current total of 184 APTB buses operate on 17 intercity routes, ferrying passengers between Jakarta and neighboring areas such as Bekasi, Bogor and Cikarang in West Java and Ciputat and Poris Plawad in Tangerang.

Since early last year, the city administration had attempted to persuade the operators to join Transjakarta in order to achieve an integrated and better managed bus system. However, discussions often ended in disagreement. In the plan put forward by the city administration, the operators would be managed by Transjakarta and paid by the city administration on a per-kilometer tariff basis.

In order to join Transjakarta, Andri said, operators would have to bring their buses and services in line with Transjakarta'€™s standards and list their services in the LKPP'€™s e-catalog, which is available for public access on the agency'€™s website, e-katalog.lkpp.go.id. Each entry must include the specifications of the operator'€™s buses and the rupiah-per-kilometer tariff for each bus.

'€œCurrently, we are discussing with PPD, Bianglala, Sinar Jaya, Hiba Utama and Agra Mas to determine the per-kilometer tariff. Mayasari Bakti has already finished this process and is already included in the e-catalog,'€ Andri said.

Mayasari Bakti'€™s services using full-sized buses are included in the e-catalog. Aside from Mayasari Bakti, PT Steady Safe and PT Pancaran Darat Transportasi are also listed in the catalog. The models of bus they offer include Swedish-made Scania and Volvo and German-made MAN, with a tariff of Rp 22,291 (US$1.60) to Rp 24,523 per km, depending on the model.

Separately, PPD president director Pande Putu Yasa said that the company had received from the Transportation Ministry an additional 600 buses, which the company would operate in cooperation with Transjakarta and state-owned Greater Jakarta bus operator Transjabodetabek to ply routes between Jakarta and its satellite municipalities.

Pande further said that the company would gradually reduce its APTB fleet and officially operate under Transjakarta and Transjabodetabek instead, adding that 20 new Transjabodetabek routes would be prepared for the operation of the new buses, on top of the existing four routes, namely Ciputat to Blok M in South Jakarta; Harapan Indah in Bekasi to Pasar Baru in South Jakarta; Depok in West Java to Grogol in West Jakarta; and Poris Plawad to Kemayoran in Central Jakarta.

PPD, Pande said, was currently preparing documents to submit to the LKPP and was in discussions with the city transportation agency and Transjakarta to determine the tariff the company would charge.

Newly inaugurated Transjakarta president director Budi Kaliwono said that the firm was currently completing the necessary documentation prior to beginning to operate PPD'€™s fleet of buses.

Budi welcomed the bus operators'€™ decision to join Transjakarta, noting that the more integrated operators there were, the better the city'€™s public transportation system would be.

'€œWe also want to persuade motorists to convert from using their private vehicles to taking our buses. This requires an integrated and better managed public transportation system,'€ Budi said.