With the rising popularity of ride-hailing apps, traveling anywhere in the capital city is as easy as tapping a finger on a mobile phone. The thriving ride-hailing app business raises questions about whether it will threaten the city’s bus rapid transit (BRT) service, Transjakarta.

Febe, a 24 year old office worker from West Jakarta said she chose to commute with a ride hailing app every day even though there was a Transjakarta bus stop near her office in central Jakarta.

“I use a ride-hailing app to commute to work because it is fast and convenient. I’ve tried using Transjakarta buses to go to work before, but the journey took quite a long time,” she told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Febe said it took between 30 minutes and an hour to commute to work using a ride-hailing application like Gojek or Grab, but it took between 1.5 and 2 hours if she used Transjakarta buses.

“The traffic jam during rush hour is very bad. I have to wake up really early if I want to commute using Transjakarta buses, so it’s very inconvenient,” she said.

She said she also preferred using a ride-hailing app because it made her journey much less tiring. She said she needed to walk about 500 meters from her house to get on an angkot (public minivan) to reach the nearest Transjakarta bus stop. After getting off of the bus, she needed to walk another 500 meters to get to her office.

“I think it’s better to spend a little bit more money so that I don’t feel as tired when I arrive at the office and when I come home,” she said.

Tri, a 30-year-old civil servant from West Jakarta chooses to combine both services on his daily commute to his office in South Jakarta.

“I usually commute to the office using a ride-hailing app. Then, I use Transjakarta buses when I go home,” he said.

Tri explained that he opted for online motorcycle taxis on his way to the office because it was faster. He took the Transjakarta bus on his way home because it was cheaper, and he was not in a rush.

The journey by motorcycle taxi usually took between 40 minutes and an hour, Tri said, while commuting using Transjakarta buses could take between 1.5 and 2 hours.

“However, using ride-hailing apps can cost me almost ten times more than using Transjakarta buses,” he said. The Transjakarta fare is fixed at Rp 3,500 (26 US cents).

Even though ride-hailing app services are on the rise, with about 2.5 million drivers in the Greater Jakarta area, Yoga Adiwinarto, the acting president director of the city-owned bus operator, said he was not worried that the business would affect the number of people using Transjakarta services.

“I think it would be hard for ride-hailing apps to be direct competitors with Transjakarta, mainly because of the huge price gap. The Transjakarta bus fare is only Rp 3,500, and you can go all over the capital city, while with ride hailing apps it’s almost Rp 3,500 per kilometer,” he said.

“We have our own market, which has different types and characteristics of customers. Sometimes our market and [that of] the competition do overlap — but only a little,” he said.

However, Yoga said the company was interested in tapping into some ride-hailing app customers.

“Many MRT passengers use ride-hailing app services as feeders to the stations because they don’t have access to Transjakarta feeders. Even if they do, they are reluctant to take our feeders, angkot, as they don’t have air conditioning,” he said.

To be more attractive to MRT passengers, who are mostly higher-income customers, Yoga said, the company planned to launch about 100 air-conditioned angkot this year with more seating.

“They would be able to take up to 15 passengers at a time compared to the 8 to 10 passengers in our common angkot. We want to rebrand the image of angkot as a comfortable mode of transportation,” Yoga said.

“I believe this is our biggest potential market at the moment. We want to provide feeders not only for MRT passengers but also for future LRT passengers,” he said.