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Transportation authorities gear up for annual Idul Fitri exodus
Although the long Idul Fitri holiday season is still about a month away, transportation authorities have begun preparatory work to ensure that the annual mass exodus involving millions of travelers runs smoothly
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span>Although the long Idul Fitri holiday season is still about a month away, transportation authorities have begun preparatory work to ensure that the annual mass exodus involving millions of travelers runs smoothly.
From seven days prior until seven days after Idul Fitri, which falls on June 5 and 6, the Transportation Ministry estimates that 22.83 million people will be heading to their home towns by air, sea, road and train. The number is up by 4.14 percent compared with last year’s figure.
Meanwhile, the number of private vehicles used for the homecoming exodus will reach 10.61 million across Indonesia, up by 13.09 percent. The ministry estimates that the exodus will peak on May 31, while the return exodus peak will occur on June 9.
“Land and air will be the favorite mode of transportation this year. People using land transportation will increase significantly due to the opening of new toll roads,” said Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi during a coordination meeting on the preparation for the annual exodus early this week. He added that the increase in air fares had discouraged many people from taking planes.
The ministry’s director general of land transportation, Budi Setyadi, said many travelers from Greater Jakarta would use the transJava toll toad this year.
Out of a total of 14.9 million people, who will travel from Greater Jakarta to various destinations, as many as 4.3 million will use their own cars. From that total, 1.71 million people (399,962 cars) are set to use the transJava toll road, while others will use the Pantura or Southern routes.
“TransJava will see the most travelers [from Greater Jakarta who will travel by car], as 40 percent of them are expected to try it out. This will be a good revenue source, but we are also anticipating possible problems that may occur,” Budi added.
The head of the Indonesia Toll Road Authority (BPJT), Danang Parikesit, said possible traffic congestion on the transJava toll road, which connects Merak in Banten to Probolinggo in East Java, might occur at several points. Hence, a traffic scenario would be applied from one way to contraflow to avoid traffic congestion.
Meanwhile, the state-owned toll road operator’s president director, Desi Arryani, said the firm had conducted a review on transJava toll road operations in anticipation of the mass exodus.
“We have reviewed the operation of several main gates such as Kali Kangkung, which heads to Semarang; Banyumanik to Surakarta and Warugunung to Surabaya. We reviewed how dense the traffic was and fixed the ratio density in order to make it safe,” she added.
To oversee the mass exodus by road across Indonesia, especially the congestion-prone area such as the Jakarta-Cikampek route, the National Police Traffic Corps (Korlantas) is also preparing to conduct its annual Operation Ketupat from May 30 to June 9.
“Our strategy to anticipate traffic congestion will generally be the same as previous years as we will implement an open-close traffic, contraflow and one-way system. We may implement the odd-even policy, but we are still discussing that,” said Korlantas’ operational division head, Benyamin, on Monday, adding that it would also discuss the scenario with related agencies such as Jasa Marga and the BPJT.
Aside from land transportation, the number of people taking planes this year will reach 5.78 million, up by 3.17 percent from the 5.60 million last year. The mass exodus by air will affect 36 airports across Indonesia.
The director general of civil aviation, Polana B. Pramesti, said the average available seat capacity they would provide every day during the mass exodus was 397,879.
Polana added that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had identified several issues relating to this year’s mass exodus that needed to be anticipated, such as airline ticket prices, baggage fee policy implementation, natural disasters and extreme weather that can disrupt aviation such as volcanic eruptions, bomb hoaxes, the surge of passengers and seat capacity.
“To anticipate the surge of passengers during the mass exodus we will ensure that airlines will be disciplined when it comes to time. To ensure safety and airworthiness we will conduct routine ramp checks and inspections,” she said.
The DGCA will also provide additional operating hours for the airport if needed and oversee the ceiling and floor prices of airline tickets. Regarding the issue of expensive airfares, Transportation Minister Budi Karya said he would summon airline operators this week to discuss ways of making fares more affordable while not burdening operators.
According to AirNav Indonesia, so far, 226 extra flights have been requested by several airline operators in anticipation of a passenger surge.
The general manager of AirNav Indonesia from the Jakarta Air Traffic Services Center, Bambang Rianto, said 64 extra flights would be provided by AirAsia, 62 by Sriwijaya Air, and 96 by NAM Air. “But, we have not yet received requests for extra flights from Garuda Indonesia and Lion Air. We will manage the requests that come first,” he said.
To ensure safety, the transportation minister urged that ramp checks for all transportation modes from airplanes, buses, ships to trains should be carried out.
Meanwhile, to avoid road accidents, especially those travelers using motorcycles, he encouraged them to participate in a free mass exodus program (Mudik Gratis) provided by the ministry.
This year, the ministry will provide 75 trucks to accommodate 2,625 motorcycles and 1,123 buses to accommodate 50,535 travelers. Meanwhile, for sea transportation, it will provide free trips for 8,000 passengers and 4,000 motorcycles as well as providing free delivery services using trains to accommodate 18,096 motorcycles.
