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The city administration should review its poor public transportation system if it wants to seriously address the traffic woes plaguing the capital, experts said on Tuesday.

Ofyar Z Tamin, a transportation expert from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), said there would be no ease-up in the daily traffic jams experienced by residents in the capital unless major changes were made to the public transportation system.

“Improving public transportation can’t be done overnight,” he said. “What’s in place now, such as the TransJakarta busway, must be optimized.”

The ultimate aim, he added, was to get commuters to opt for public transportation as opposed to private vehicles.

Ofyar said the bus and rail networks should be integrated under a single ticketing system. The technology, he said, was available, but political will was lacking.

There are currently more than 9.6 million private vehicles registered in Greater Jakarta, and about 900,000 public transportation vehicles.

The city currently runs the TransJakarta busway, a network of bus-only lanes crisscrossing the capital, and is planning a rail-based Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system, for which construction is expected to begin in 2012.

Ofyar called on the city to adopt a Transit Oriented Development scheme. This, he said, would give commuters traveling by bus, rail or both faster transit times in an integrated system.

“With the TOD, the need for private vehicles can be reduced,” he said. “The next step is to do the studies to identify the congestion nodes.”

He also criticized the administration’s plan to build new roads, saying this would only encourage commuters to drive and keep them from using public transportation.

Improving Public Routes

Heru Sutomo, a transportation expert from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, said Jakarta’s current public routes were poorly laid out and ineffective.

“A well-planned route is crucial for the success of public transportation,” he said. “The system as it stands now is haphazard.”

Heru urged the city to consolidate public bus fleets and set out more efficient and effective routes for them. “That way the routes can be integrated as part of a citywide network,” he said.

He added that public transportation’s lack of appeal for most commuters could be traced back to the increasing affordability of private vehicles, particularly motorcycles.

City Secretary Muhayat agreed that the increasing number of private vehicles, up 11 percent on last year, was to blame for much of the traffic problems in Jakarta, which cause an estimated Rp 17.2 trillion ($1.87 billion) in losses annually. “Our focus in addressing the transportation problem will be on capacity, reach and quality,” he said.

Muhayat sai d the city expected to have all 15 corridors of the busway system operational by 2014, while the first phase of the MRT project would be extended to cater to more commuters.

Revising the MRT System

The first phase of the MRT, initially set to run 14.5 kilometers from Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta to Dukuh Atas in Central Jakarta, will now be extended a further kilometer to the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta.

“The idea is to serve as many commuters as possible, and the traffic circle is a much more centralized hub than Dukuh Atas,” said Tribudi Rahardjo, president director of development consortium PT MRT Jakarta.

He said the revised design would bring the number of stations along the first stage to 13 — seven elevated and six underground — and would add about $100 million to the initial cost of 144 billion yen ($1.58 billion).

Around 120 billion yen will come from loans provided by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, while the rest will be covered by the Indonesian and Jakarta governments. The first phase is scheduled for completion in 2016.

The second phase, currently undergoing a feasibility study, will run from the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle to Kampung Bandan in North Jakarta, and is not expected to be completed until 2020.

Tribudi said a third stage of the MRT — running east to west through the capital, from Balaraja in Banten to Cikarang in West Java — had already undergone a feasibility study, with several revisions now being considered.

City councilor Muhammad Sanusi said a transportation overhaul was welcomed. “The plan we eventually end up with must be transparent, so we’re not left with a white elephant like the monorail project,” he said.

The monorail project was halted in 2004 almost immediately after it began due to difficulties finding investors. The project was officially abandoned in March 2008.

The monorail was to feature two elevated lines: one looping through Semanggi, Casablanca, Kuningan, Sudirman and Karet; the other passing through Kampung Melayu, Casablanca, Karet, Tanah Abang, Roxy and Taman Anggrek Mall.