BPJT data published on Friday show that, with the latest addition, the country’s toll roads at the end of 2020 stretched a combined 2,346 km, which compares to 2,088 km in December 2019.

The longest toll road operating in 2020 was the 131.69-km-long Pekanbaru–Dumai road in Riau. Most of the new roads are in Java and Sumatra, the country’s two most populated islands, except for the 26.35-km-long Manado–Danowudu section of the Manado-Bitung toll road in Sulawesi.

“The tendency abroad is that toll roads support freight vehicles. These enable better, faster services than non-toll roads,” said BPJT head Danang Parikesit, explaining the target market for the roads, at a virtual press conference on Friday evening.

The realized expansion is, however, lower than government expectations for 2020. The target for new toll roads to enter service last year was 314 km, as announced by the Public Works and Housing (PUPR) Ministry’s roadworks director general, Hedy Rahadian, in October last year.

The government has long made efforts to push down the stubbornly high logistics costs in the country and reduce price disparities among the country’s many islands through infrastructure development. The country’s logistic costs stand at 23.5 percent of the country’s GDP, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said in September.

The BPJT explained in its presentation on Friday that it aims to expand Indonesia’s toll road network to 4,761 km by 2024.

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