The Jakarta administration wants cheap tickets for passengers of the MRT and the Light Rail Transit (LRT), but others may have to help foot the subsidies bill.
f the Jakarta administration wants cheap tickets for passengers of both the MRT and the Light Rail Transit (LRT), the city will have to spend close to Rp 1 trillion (US$70 million) per year in subsidies.
The Jakarta Transportation Council (DTKJ) estimated that if the city charged passengers between Rp 8,500 (US$60 cents) and Rp 12,500 per ride for the MRT and between Rp 5,000 and Rp 7,000 for the LRT, for at least 65,000 passengers per day on the MRT and 14,255 people per day on the LRT, it would have to allocate Rp 672.38 billion in public funds for the former and Rp 327 billion for the latter.
DKTJ head Iskandar Abubakar said he expected the subsidies to amount to Rp 22,000 per passenger for the MRT and Rp 36,000 for the LRT. Without the subsidies, passengers would have to pay Rp. 32,000 for the MRT and Rp 42,000 for the LRT.
In a meeting with the Jakarta Council on Friday, Iskandar proposed that the city would pay the same amount of subsidies for all passengers, whether they held residency in Jakarta or not.
"The capital city belongs to all Indonesians, not only Jakartans [...]. It would be very complicated to ask for passengers’ KTP only to buy MRT or LRT tickets," Iskandar said.
During the meeting with councilors of Jakarta Council Commission C, which oversees city finances, the city administration through the DTKJ proposed ticket prices of Rp 10,000 for the MRT and Rp 6,000 for the LRT.
Some of the councilors in the meeting said the city administration could achieve cheap fares only if it found an alternative source of funding to finance the operation of the new mass transit systems.
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