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MRT Jakarta breaks passenger record thanks to students rallies
Adding to the regular crowd of mostly office employees like her, Naila said the situation was more “colorful” that day. She was referring to the colors of students’ jackets representing various universities.
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Residents wait in line to buy MRT Jakarta tickets at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle station in Central Jakarta on July 21. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
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ndonesia’s first subway service MRT Jakarta has reached its target of serving 100,000 passengers per day, thanks to the student protests that have been taking place since Monday, which have affected traffic conditions and contributed to a surge of passengers using the mass rapid transit system.
MRT Jakarta president director William Sabandar said the rallies had significantly increased the number of passengers, particularly in the afternoon when traffic and commuter line services were affected by protests.
The three-day protests saw thousands of students take to the streets to rally in front of the House of Representatives compound in Senayan, Central Jakarta.
“On Wednesday, the number of passengers topped our record in the past six months; there were 121,076 passengers on Wednesday and 113,560 on Tuesday,” William said as quoted by tempo.co on Thursday.
He added that from Sept. 1 to 25, MRT Jakarta served 90,386 passengers on average every day. The figure was a 12 percent increase from August’s daily average of 82,477.
When the MRT first launched in March this year, it served an average of 79,114 passengers per day.
Frequent rider Naila Kamila also noticed the surging number of passengers on Tuesday.
