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Transjakarta plans feeder expansion to serve more passengers in the 'burbs
Commuters might need to hold their breath a while longer, but Transjakarta says plans are in the works to eventually shrink the distance between bus shelters from 500 to 300 meters.
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Passengers get off at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle (Bundaran HI) Transjakarta bus shelter in Central Jakarta and head for the stairs to the Bundaran HI MRT Jakarta station in this file photo. (The Jakarta Post/Wendra Ajistyatama )
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erving millions of passenger trips a year on the many routes it provides, the city-owned Transjakarta Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service has become an indispensable part of the daily commute for residents in the capital and its suburbs.
Launched in 2004, the Transjakarta BRT – also known simply as "the busway" – served more than 264 million cumulative passenger trips last year with its 3,865-strong fleet, ranging from big articulated buses to micro buses on its 13 main corridors and several sub-routes that criss-cross Jakarta.
Amid the company's efforts to spread its service coverage, however, many areas are still not linked to the Transjakarta network, which has deterred residents from using the service.
Tirta Umbas, a 25-year-old office worker who lives in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, is one underserved customer. Tirta said he was reluctant to use the Transjakarta BRT for his daily commute to his workplace in the Sudirman Central Business District (SCBD) of South Jakarta.
One reason, he said, was because the nearest bus shelter was 3 kilometers from his house – too far to reach by foot, and a feeder service was unavailable.
“I usually order an online ojek [motorcycle taxi] to get to the bus shelter. However, the rush-hour traffic [around here] is the absolute worst, especially now because of the toll road construction project in the area. So it’s quite a struggle to get to the bus shelter,” Tirta told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
He said that because of the project, these days he preferred to take a ride-hailing ojek to the nearest MRT station, around 6 kilometers from his house.
