TransJakarta Opens Two More Corridors

Posted: 01 Feb 2006

Related to: Jakarta BRT, Developing High-Quality, Low-Cost Mass Transit, Indonesia
Contributed by: Andi Rahmah, Yayasan -- Pelangi Indonesia


Photos: Passenger overcrowding at Monas Station, Harmony Transfer Terminal

The first corridor of the TransJakarta busway has been so successful that Governor Sutiyoso has accelerated the development of the next six corridors, shortening the construction schedule by three years.  Construction of the infrastructure for the second and third corridors began in mid-2005.  Even though the interchange bus station of the three corridors, named the Harmony Central Busway (HCB) station, is still under construction, the government of Jakarta launched the soft opening of the new corridors on January 25th, 2006.

This decision resulted in some criticism based on the fact that the busway operator could only initially operate 8 of the 71 buses planned for the second and third corridors. In addition, the utilization of three temporary interchange bus stations has created queues of more than eight TransJakarta buses at a time and overcrowding at these three stations.

Fortunately, the TransJakarta authorities responded well to mitigate these problems, devoting to the second corridor a portion of the fleet that was idle on the first corridor.  The most overcrowded temporary interchange bus station, at Monas, received a temporary modification to increase its capacity.  The new measures have significantly reduced the queuing and crowding of the passengers who are boarding and alighting on that bus station.

“Learning by doing” is a keyword of the BRT system development in Jakarta.  Currently, TransJakarta serves more than 100,000 passengers per day, more than three times the average number of passengers that were served by the first corridor during the first quarter of its opening in 2004.  ITDP estimates that the total number of daily passengers served by Jakarta’s BRT system in Jakarta will reach 200,000 once the system is fully operational—including completion of HCB and the Roxy flyover.

TransJakarta has already changed the image of public transport in Jakarta in that it is no longer viewed as the travel mode of the poor.  In addition, the TransJakarta busway has begun to create an impetus for transit-oriented development.  By improving access to the historic old city, the first TransJakarta corridor has improved the viability of efforts to restore the area.  During the last week of 2005, Governor Sutiyoso ordered a pedestrian cultural zone to be created around Plaza Fatahillah, just north of the Kota BRT terminal.  ITDP is now taking steps to assist the city in the design of the new pedestrian zone.

Photos source: Arief Darmawan