“The government has given us the rights to construct [the toll road extension]. Hopefully, it will start in January and be completed at the end of next year,” the company’s operational director Agung Prasetyo said at a press briefing in Cirebon on Wednesday.

He added the West Java provincial administration was still acquiring the land needed for the project. The land acquisition is targeted to be completed by the end of this year. 

The company, however, has not yet made any decision about the management of the toll road section. “We will decide later once the construction is finished,” Agus said.

PT Lintas Marga Sedaya – a subsidiary of Astra Infra, the infrastructure arm of diversified business group PT Astra International – has been operating the 116-kilometer Cipali toll road since its inauguration in June 2015.

The toll road extension is expected to help bring more passengers to Kertajati International Airport.

The government is still struggling to attract more passengers to the airport since it opened to the public in May 2018. The Kertajati development aims to share the burden of the overcrowded Husein Sastranegara Airport in Bandung, also in West Java.

Accessibility to the airport is the main reason for the lack of passengers, as it is located about 165 km from Bandung. Passengers have to drive for about 2.5 hours from Bandung via an existing toll road to reach the airport.

Transportation experts said the accessibility issue might be solved once the Cisumdawu Toll Road (Cileunyi-Sumedang-Dawuan) was completed, which is expected to cut the trip from Bandung to Kertajati to just one hour by car.

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