Some Jakarta Busway Lanes Opened to Cars

Posted: 25 Feb 2008

Related to: Jakarta BRT, Managing Traffic Demand, Indonesia
Contributed by: John Ernst, ITDP

Editor’s note: There have been some new developments since this story was written.  Governor Fauzi Bowo announced that the government would ban all other motorists from the TransJakarta lanes and those bus lanes would once again become exclusive. Before March, portions of Jakarta’s busway corridors had been opened to general traffic by the Jakarta police, doubling and tripling travel time for some TransJakarta riders.

Since January of 2007, the TransJakarta busway has been operating 97 km of services on seven corridors.  Work on three additional corridors is in progress.

Some segments of corridors are opened during rush hours in locations where police judge the traffic congestion to be extreme.  These actions focus primarily on three of the seven corridors.  On Corridors 2, 3 and 6, travel times for the full length of the corridors have increased to 1.5 to 2 hours from their original travel times of 40-50 minutes.


Cars are allowed into the busway during rush hour. (Source: John Ernst)

The Jakarta Police are responding to complaints from motorists.  They contend that there is no legal basis for restricting the busway exclusively to TransJakarta buses, so the use of the lane is at their discretion.

Motorists had some legitimate grievances.  Because most of the old bus routes were not converted into feeder bus routes, they continue to congest the mixed traffic lanes.  Meanwhile recommended improvements in some critical intersections that cause much of the mixed traffic delay have yet to be implemented.

Part of the problems is the result of a period of political transition.  Former Governor Sutiyoso’s term ended in October 2007, and the Vice-Governor, Fauzi Bowo, was elected to replace him.  The new Governor was a key proponent of TransJakarta and played a critical role in its success, but his full team is only now getting established.  He plans to fix many of the problems on the 10 corridors now existing or under construction, before compounding them with the completion of additional corridors. 

Nonetheless, the increased travel times mean the busway has lost its key point of attraction for passengers.  In addition, heavy financial losses are expected for TransJakarta, increasing an already existing reliance on government subsidies.