About 10 meters above the ground, a silver train glided on elevated light rapid transit (LRT) railway connecting Velodrome Station in Rawamangun, East Jakarta, and Kelapa Gading Station in North Jakarta.

It seemed to shine under the sunlight, an effect made brighter by the electric white light coming from inside the cars.

Since failing to launch its operations for the Asian Games, PT LRT Jakarta has conducted test runs on the LRT almost every day.

The 5.8-kilometer trip on Wednesday started at 2:30 p.m. and only took 15 minutes.

It was led by 22-year-old driver Sadiyah Utami.

Sadiyah got out of the driver’s seat with a smile after successfully stopping the train at the exact desired position.

“Stopping the train is one of the hardest parts of the job. Despite the high-end technology, a train driver is still required to be skilled at calculating speeds and distances, so that the train stops at the right spot,” she
explained.

After leaving Velodrome Station, the train traveled at 40 km per hour before slowing down to 15-20 km per hour while passing stations along the corridor. It arrived at Kelapa Gading Station in less than 15 minutes.

The LRT’s construction was based on the Presidential Decree No. 99/2015 on the acceleration of rail-based transportation in Jakarta issued by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

The LRT was initially expected to be launched before the 2018 Asian Games started.

However, plans for a trial run were delayed several times because the project, developed by city-owned developer PT Jakarta Propertindo (Jakpro), did not have an operational permit from the Transportation Ministry. Nor was construction finished on a depot in Kelapa Gading.

PT LRT Jakarta president director Allan Tandiono said that, as of Wednesday, the construction of an LRT depot and six stations for the first line was 85 percent completed.

Construction workers are currently focusing on installing lamps, elevators, escalators and other public facilities, he added.

“The Transportation Ministry granted us a license to conduct a trial run, since construction has reached 85 percent. We will start operating commercially at the end of this year,” he said.

“There will be 16 LRT trains serving the first corridor, eight of which have been certified and are ready to be operated.

“The other eight are still being assessed by expert engineers from the manufacturer.”

LRT trains were manufactured by Hyundai Rotem in South Korea. One LRT train can carry 500 passengers.

Allan hoped that the construction of other routes would soon follow the launch of the first line.

The company has hired 24 certified train drivers, 20 of whom are 20 to 23 years old, while the other four are experienced drivers who have been working with PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) for years.

“Besides me, there are five other female train drivers. We have been training for months and now are ready to work,” Sadiyah said.

Allan promised that the company would also invite more people to join the test run, especially residents of East and North Jakarta who live around the LRT line.

“We’ve asked permission from the city administration. We expect them to issue the permit [to invite the public for a trial run] next week,” he said.

“Residents around the construction projects have been living uncomfortably. We owe it to them. We wanted them to be the first ones to try the LRT.”

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