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Jakarta’s commuter train service can be unreliable, unconformable and often dangerous, but around 400,000 people use it daily. Ajeng, a 25-year-old account executive at one of Indonesia’s largest banks, isn’t one of them.

Her office in Palmerah, West Jakarta, is only a few hundred meters from a train station, and she lives in Bintaro, South Jakarta, just five minutes away from a station.

Still, Ajeng has never taken the train to work and likely never will. She prefers to go in her chauffeur-driven car even though she spends at least an hour each way in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Every day, Ajeng said, she meets various bank clients, including senior executives, and must dress appropriately. “My position at work forces me to take a car and not the train,” she said. “There is no way I can take motorcycle taxis wearing my formal business suit.”

Fair enough, but Djoko Setijowarno, head of the railway transportation forum at the Indonesian Transportation Society, said there’s more at work here than sweaty and wrinkled clothes.

“There’s still a notion that people riding in private cars have more prestige than those who take public transport,” he said.

Adra, a senior official at a government ministry, which he declined to name, admits he’s reluctant to take the train from his house to the office, preferring to ride in the back of his SUV.

“I’m lucky I have a driver who is ready practically 24/7,” the 46-year-old husband and father of three said. “So why should I bother taking public transport under the scorching sun?”

In exchange for comfort and social status, Adra spends at least 90 minutes each way between his house in Tanah Kusir, South Jakarta, and his office in Central Jakarta. However, he said, thanks to his comfortable car and portable work tools, he doesn’t mind the traffic jams.

“I admit I am a contributor to Jakarta’s traffic problem,” Adra said, “but until there’s a decent mode of transportation, I have no option.” He rightly points out that even if he did drive himself to the train station closest to his house and commuted, there’s nowhere to park his car.

Status symbols or not, it’s hard to blame people who prefer to take their private vehicles to work, given the lack of an integrated public transportation system. Even the express trains, which are air-conditioned, don’t stop at every station in the city, meaning passengers still need yet another ride to get near their offices.

“After they get out of the station, most likely they don’t want to be crammed into a minibus,” Djoko said.

Djoko said he believed that if a more integrated transportation system were in place, people would slowly turn from their private vehicles.

He said he hoped the emergence of an integrated network would spark a cultural shift where Indonesians of all social classes would be amenable to public transportation. “For starters, the train operator must increase passenger capacity” to enable people to sit comfortably, he said, adding that the current commuter service is only aimed at middle-class people.

That may change more quickly than people think. A central government regulation passed in September partially privatizes commuter and intercity train services across the country.

Tundjung Inderawan, director general of railway transportation at the Ministry of Transportation, said private companies and regional governments could soon jump into the train business. “Thus there will be competition aiming to give the best service to the customers,” he said.