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Merak, Banten. Thousands of trucks clogged the Tangerang-Merak toll road, as well as Merak Port in Banten, on Friday, just days after the government managed to clear up a two-week backlog of trucks at the port.

The problem was again fewer ferries making the crossing to Bakauheni Port in Lampung.

According to Yaya Andria, an official at toll-road operator Marga Mandalasakti, the traffic jam began around midnight on Thursday and grew from there. “This is the umpteenth time it has happened,” Yaya said on Friday.

Mario S. Oetomo, a public affairs official at state-owned ASDP Indonesia Ferry, which oversees ferry traffic at the country’s ports, blamed this latest backlog on the increased number of trucks making the crossing from Java to Sumatra.

“As usual, a line forms toward the end of the week because that is when many companies send goods all over Sumatra,” he said.

On Wednesday, Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi said the government would build additional piers at Merak and Bakauheni ports to handle more ferry traffic. Part of the plan, he said, is to build special piers to handle slow ferries.

“We have received complaints that slow ferries are hampering the fast ones. We have reported to the vice president that we have regrouped ships based on their speed classification,” Freddy said. “So, in the future, the slow ones will have special piers.”

He said the government would increase the number of piers at each of the two ports to six. The construction of the piers at Merak, he said, will cost Rp 120 billion ($13.7 million), and the price tag at Bakauheni will be between Rp 450 billion and Rp 550 billion.

With just 17 of 30 ferries at Merak Port operational earlier this month, the line of trucks waiting to make the crossing stretched up to 12 kilometers.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono responded by demanding more ferries be put in service.

Freddy said at the time that he hoped to increase the number of operational ferries at Merak to 27 or 28.

“We’ll get four from the Navy and the rest from ferry operators in East Nusa Tenggara,” he said. “We understand that the trade volume between Java and Sumatra is the largest [between islands nationwide].”

Seven extra ferries came into service, helping bring the traffic jam down to three kilometers, but on Friday the port was back down to just 17 ferries.

Hatta Rajasa, the coordinating minister for the economy, said one short-term solution would be to boost the fleet with larger-capacity ferries, given the increasing volume of freight.



Antara