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Tia is 20 years old and works as a “three-in-one jockey” in the traffic-choked streets of Jakarta.

The term jockey has nothing to do with horse racing, but instead is the job description for thousands of poor people who offer their services as additional car passengers.

In order to manage the city’s daily traffic chaos, Jakarta’s authorities restrict private car access to certain roads during rush hour if they carry less than three passengers. Which is where Tia and her 4-year-old daughter come in.

The mother and her child are particularly popular with motorists because they count as “two” without charging twice the “service fee,” receiving Rp 10,000 ($1) per ride.

“On some days, I may manage to get five fares, but sometimes I wait in vain for three days,” said the young mother before entering her first car of the day on busy Jalan Jusuf Adiwinata.

She is smartly dressed, with her hair neatly combed. A good first impression is important in her business, which she has pursued for the past five months.

Tia and her daughter wait for customers everyday, some three hours in the morning and then three hours again during the afternoon.

“How else could I earn money to buy food?” she asked, adding that she works as a cleaning woman in between her roadside sessions to make additional income to pay her rent. Jakarta’s three-in-one car passenger concept was introduced in 1992 on two main traffic thoroughfares to avert the capital’s imminent traffic collapse.

Some 12 million people live in Greater Jakarta, with an equal number of daily commuters from surrounding areas to match.

About six million cars clog the streets every day and this figure annually increases by 11 percent, according to the Ministry of Transport. The system initially succeeded to halve the traffic in the restricted zones. But with the steady increase in cars, even in the three-in-one” lanes traffic has reverted back to its former sluggishness.

Iwan, 27, has worked as a jockey for five years. He complains about ever-increasing competition, especially from women like Tia.

“There too many people on the road offering their services as jockeys these days,” he said. “And women with children are usually more popular than men.”

Dozens of jockeys line the curbside in Jakarta’s Menteng district, raising their arms with their index fingers outstretched — the sign that they are available.

“I even have some regular customers,” Iwan said.

Iwan tries to save Rp 10,000 to 20,000 a day, just “in case my 1-year-old son falls sick”. His wife sells tea and coffee at a bus stop.

He started as jockey for lack of the skills to get a better job. He talks vaguely of “false friends” who once took him down the wrong path.

His future career dreams are humble: he wants a regular job, maybe as a janitor. But that would be impossible without the right connections, he said.

As long as Jakarta’s traffic planners do not come up with a new plan to curb the traffic, his job as a jockey seems secure.

Pylons for a monorail have been erected, but the project has been all but abandoned due to “legal and financial obstacles.”

A rapid mass-transit system is planned, but has been mired in difficulties and delays. A first stretch might open by 2016.

Meanwhile, the jockeys make their money out of the traffic misery. But it is not easily earned.

There are gangs controlling some roads who do not take kindly to “invading” jockeys, Iwan said.

He was once beaten up because he entered the domain of a local gang. He has been arrested “dozens of times,” and was once imprisoned for two weeks.

Tia’s customers sometimes take her for a prostitute.

One man once drove into an underground parking garage and made sexual advances to her. She was able to flee with her daughter in time, she said.

DPA