Enhancing the Railway Transportation, Better Late than Never

Looking at the railway transportation in Indonesia always gives us a negative perception of the poor undertaking. People always associate this mode of transportation with the bad image of illegal ragged shelters covering the railway banks and semi-legal stalls occupy the station platform and parking lots. Crowded passengers squatting on the top of the carriages worsen the already bleak image, which by any standard violates the very basic safety rules. 

The problem is so eye-catching and persistent. Why? The root of the problem should not come from the railway mismanagement alone, but largely from the public attitude that the public service should be cheap no matter how big is the operation cost of the related service. Probably there is still residual mindset among Indonesian people that in the independence era, people are free and should not pay or pay very little for the public services they need.

And what consequences we get from this misleading belief? The railway situations in the country become degrading because of significant reduction of the length of the railway tracks as a result of dismantlement almost all side tracks preserving only the main tracks along Java island and little parts in Sumatra. Barely new tracks and new stations have been built in the country since the independence day.

The main cause of this gloomy situation is clearly triggered by the imbalanced competition between railway transportation versus car transportation. However, society’s wrong attitude that train tariff should be very cheap worsen the situation. The tariffs which are far lower than the operating cost cause the railway company hardly capable of replacing any broken components forcing the management to sacrifice the passenger comfort and the image of such mode of transportation.

The situation makes many officers who is responsible to handle the operation lose their innovative spirit. The railway business environment in the country is so degraded that it becomes a public secret that many railway employees feel at ease dealing with the stalls and the shelter's owners to gain some regular petty cash as though their behavior is a normal one.

Such tattered picture of the railway conditions has dragged on for years, part because of imbalance between cheap ticket policy versus government subsidies. This pro-poor attitude is the right policy put in the wrong place. The tariffs plus the government subsidy should be enough to meet, at least, the operational cost and if possible to improve and develop the carriage armada and the station conditions.

Enough is enough. Even a public service such as railway business requires modern management and ambitious, dynamic and innovative leadership. Good examples could be drawn from quite successful public services such as post office, state-owned pawn shops and in larger scale Garuda air carrier. Under the current action that railway management has taken, it seems that our wish to have better public transportation will come true.

Various efforts have been taken to eliminate illegal passengers sitting on the roof of the carriage though resistance still can be found here and there. Even at certain spot, the railway entrance gates with electric wire are erected so that people don’t dare to sit on the carriage roof.

Railway officers have managed to demolish kiosks at the station platforms and parking lots, especially those in big cities. The bigger step is still needed, however, to demolish shelters constructed along the rails, as they might endanger the railway passage.  

The implementation of E-ticket system is certainly a big leap in modernizing Indonesian railway. The board of management realizes that under the condition where many passengers have no tickets or holding used tickets have put the company into a big loss. The crowded carriages worsen the condition where conductors are impossible to execute their duties to check all passengers' tickets.

But now, under E-ticket system passengers can only enter the entrance gate or get out of the exit gate by introducing the ticket on or into card-reader installed in the gates guaranteeing that all passengers have a ticket with them.

With the use of E-ticket, it can easily accommodate the progressive tariff as a function of voyage distance which is fairer and more economical for the passengers. The passengers who don’t want to have a long queue, multi-trip E-tickets which last for months are also available.

The train management has set electronic means at 63 stations in Jabodetabek (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok and Tangerang). In the first days of its implementation, many passengers are not accustomed yet to the new system causing long queues before the entrance gates. However, we believe that people will be very quick to adopt  such an E-ticket system as it has long been implemented in many countries without a problem.

Congratulation, it is better too late than never!

Monorail, an Ever Changing Project

Jakarta people are tired with the daily traffic jams that they have to face. The number of cars and motorcycles which crowd the roads are increasing significantly from time to time. Meanwhile, the length of the roads and public transportation armada are stagnant. The city government seems helpless unless they find some innovative ways to develop a revolutionary mode of transportation. 

   

However, the alternatives are costly especially when it comes to taking the monorail as the public mass transportation. Never on the world that a project underwent so much changing which took 12 years to truly begin. It was in 2001 that the Central government through the Ministry of State Owned Companies and city government agreed to establish a project consortium called PT Indonesia Transit Central (ITC) headed by PT Adhi Karya.

After three years of conducting a feasibility study, ITC started to construct the monorail poles which were inaugurated by President Megawati on June 2004 but was postponed only after several weeks on the go. In 2005, the project then was given to a consortium consisting of PT Jakarta Monorail and Omnico a Singapore company which provided Adhi Karya 45 percent shares. However, as Omnico didn't provide enough capital the project failed to proceed.  

Early this year, after it halted for years,  Joko Widodo, the new city governor, confirmed that the monorail project would be continued under Jakarta Monorail management. Adhi Karya declined to join and offered instead a proposal to Jakarta government to build other monorail projects with different routes.

The Jakarta Monorail had two options of co-operation with the third party namely Hadji Kalla Group and Ortus Group. The latter was preferred as they offered better option investing Rp12 trillion without any financial support from national or city budgets and willing to pay Rp204 billion to Adhi Karya as the compensation for their previous monorail pole constructions. 

The monorail will cover two main routes: Kampung Melayu-Tebet-Kuningan-Casablanca-Tanah Abang-Roxy-Taman Anggrek (West Jakarta) with the extension to the east from Pondok Kelapa-Sentral East Jakarta and to the west from Puri Indah. Meanwhile the second line starts from Kuningan-Duku Atas-Pejompongan-Senayan-Gatot Subroto-and back to Kuningan.

As the monorail project is funded by private corporations, the transportation tariff will fully depend on the amount of the investment and the operating cost. However, city residents have their option to select which one of the modes of transportation suitable most for them. With regards to their purchasing power, they may choose the cheapest mode of transportation but sacrificing the comfort or more expensive luxury transportation whether monorail, busway, ordinary buses or else. 

As long as all options are available and people have various alternatives to choose there will be no problem for city residents to make up their minds said Jokowi.

Jokowi, the Jakarta Controversial Governor

Who is now the top news-maker in Indonesia? Many people will answer almost unanimously: “Jokowi”. Joko Widodo, the full name of Jokowi now the Jakarta governor, does indeed attract so many people, not only in Jakarta but the whole country. He was awarded as the world third best mayor by the England-based City Mayors Foundation, after Bilbao City Mayor, Spain, and Perth City Mayor, Australia, due to his outstanding achievement when he was the Solo city mayor. 

As a new metropolitan governor, his humble behavior doesn’t change as he was to be as Solo city mayor. He had done "grubby" things that no other bureaucrats of the same level want to do. He likes to go down to earth directly to the core of the problems, instead of staying in the luxury office doing notional things. He didn’t have any burden to walk around in the slum areas or the illegal site of sidewalk traders and picking up the first-hand information for the sake of having better city condition. 

The improvement of the city and the socio-economic conditions of his people were not his only concern. Even he put his hand on the construction of the car by the local Vocational High School students, the deed that actually should be taken by higher-ranking decision-makers.

No wonder that he easily gained votes in all Jakarta municipalities except in Thousand Islands defeating the incumbent governor, Dr. Fauzi Bowo. Even low-income families living along the railway tracks and river banks welcome him. They know though that Jokowi may dismantle their illegal huts hoping to get better resettlement in new plain cluster houses that Jokowi promises to build in the nearby areas. 

To implement his working program, Jokowi is very firm, as he doesn’t like his subordinates to have business as usual and indifferently doing their duties inspirited. Fortunately, he is supported by Basuki Purnama, his deputy, who is also pragmatic as himself whom he assigns to deal with administrative works. Basuki, whose nickname Ahok, under the auspice of Jokowi, imposes his subordinates to set up more efficient municipal work program and budget, review the cost of mega-projects and make use of the excess budget for coping the acute traffic jam and seasonal flood problems. 

As Basuki handles most of the office works, Jokowi can concentrate to take in his “hobby” making incognito tours surprising many of his district heads. During one of his unexpected abrupt tours in Marunda, North Jakarta, he was surprised to find that many cluster houses intended for low-income families were still half empty. As the rented cost was relatively cheap there must be something tricky that his subordinates may gain illegal profit for themselves. 

The intermediaries are used to sneaky around offering people to get the accommodation inside cluster houses but with some extra handsome ransom. The head of city housing program soon resigned or otherwise be fired as he deceived people telling that nobody from the slum areas was eager to move to the cluster houses. 

To cope with the latent traffic jam, Jokowi proposed to impose the alternate restriction in certain roads on cars having even-or-odd plate number replacing the three-in-one regulation. As expected, there are pros and cons to this new idea drawing president’s attention asking for a careful study before putting it into effect. 

On top of his priority to expand the busway armada, he cautiously reconsiders the existing mega-project plans among others mono-rails, fly-over, city toll-road sections and new proposal on multi-function tunnel designed for coping with both water flooding and traffic problems.

One of the flagship programs of the governor is the free Jakarta Health Cards. Coinciding with National Heroes Day, Jokowi launched the cards in some districts marking the beginning of the card distribution to all Jakarta citizens, rich and poor, hoping that only poor people numbering to 4.7 million will really want to take the benefit of it.

Unfortunately, his goodwill was shadowed by heavy floods taking place during his first 100-working days which inundated the whole city, the presidential palace included, which forced him to intensify his abrupt visits to various places in the city searching for a future better solution. 

Dear Mr. Governor, welcome and good luck!

Jakarta on Fire

Up to 1970s, Jakarta was known as a big village. But now with high skyscraper buildings scattered around surrounded by modern suburbs, it becomes a big metropolitan. However, the densely populated slums in peripheral areas remain untouched mainly alongside rivers, unused state lands, and railways. 

The huts and small illegal houses which pack together in cluster giving no space between one another are prone to unhealthy environment and more fatally big fires. The latter takes toll of the huge amount of citizens’ properties and sometimes human life. The fire incident is caused mainly by an electric short circuit and by stove explosion in the second place.

Statistically, two or three fires damage Jakarta every day, especially at those highly populated slums such as Tambora in West Jakarta, Tanah Abang and Bendungan Hilir in Central Jakarta. Since January to July 2012, there have been around 560 cases of fires raging over various parts of the city taking toll of 30 human lives.

Just to take for example, the fire incident in Tambora, 28 July 2012 devastated 500 houses making at least 1,400 people were homeless. Amazingly, no longer than 10 days after, the fire raged again the area, where 75 houses were destroyed and 400 people homeless. Just two days before, in Bendungan Hilir fire destroyed more than 100 houses causing 500 people homeless. The lesson was never learned.

Most people living in the slum areas have migrated from outside the city illegally occupying the areas. They build the rudimentary huts with fire-prone materials, barely any alley to cross and no water supply in or close to the site. Most of the electrical installations in the shelters do not meet with the standard. The illegal electricity conjunction, that people connect from the electric lines, aggravates the condition.

The danger of fire is imminent as most people there are reckless about such danger that haunts them. It is almost impossible to extinguish the fire if it happens as not enough water available and no fire-truck can approach the spot. Within a short time, the flame will propagate to the whole area fiercely consuming everything around.

But, this is not the only story. Business centers and factories with complete fire extinguishers are occasionally vulnerable to fire. The last incident was on August 12, just four days after the second Tambora’s fire, a total of 27 stalls at Harco Glodok, in the Chinese town were combusted.

To cope with the electrical short circuit hazard, PLN together with the electric contractor associations have to intensively socialize people to use proper and standardized electrical equipment and re-check regularly the condition of electric installation. More importantly, PLN should selectively supply the power to fire-vulnerable huts and houses and refuse to do so especially for illegal shelters.

Does the fire become Jakarta everlasting problem?

Revitalization of Old Buildings in the Old City Areas

Jakarta is a dynamic city and shows its ever-increasing development. However, latent problems caused by traffic jam, floods and sidewalk traders seemingly to persist. On top of tackling those problems, the city government has a plan to promote the old area to become a tourist destination but only partially successful.

The old city which becomes the target of those promotions covering parts of North and West Jakarta. The old buildings inside the area have been treated as persevered monuments and any renovation of them must receive a special permit from local government to preserve the architecture of the buildings. 

What happens is that the owners of the buildings don’t have the same spirit as the city government to promote the area. Most of the owners cannot properly make use of the buildings considering their strategic location. They even neglect the maintenance of the buildings letting them untouched as such that give a shabby impression.

It seems that the owners do not even have the attention to painting the walls of their buildings and the city government never calls for them to do so. This is very disappointing considering that even in the relatively poor areas such as in the regencies and villages outside Jakarta the authorities used to ask their communities to paint the walls of their homes, for example, in the occasion of celebrating the Independence Day.

Special attention has to be given to the old dwellings of two-story houses which the second floor used as family living rooms and the first one as a store. The merchandise or food sales sometimes are equal to what street vendors have. Such a condition certainly tarnishes the city appearance which is contrary to the city planners.  

A big question is naturally raised. How come that the owners of the shops and the unmaintained old buildings could pay an exorbitant land and building tax (PBB) where the price of land is more than Rp 20 million (around US$2000) per square meter? The fact that many owners have moved to real estates in the skirt of Jakarta and don’t properly pay taxes for their old negligent properties. 

The city government should be more rigorous to impose the city residents to fulfill their obligations. The owners should be obedient to pay tax according to the high value of their properties amid their bad appearance. For those who want to maintain their properties within such areas, should renovate their buildings and pay the tax.

For those who are unable or do not want to pay the cumulative unpaid taxes for years should release their properties to the third parties or the city government if they are interested. The buildings could be renovated or demolished to widen the roads or to build open areas or recreation centers.

Under such determination, it is hoped that the city government could implement their plan to make the old city center become a tourist destination.