Scale models of Chinese-made bullet trains on exhibition at a shopping mall in Jakarta. Photo: AFP / Bay Ismoyo
While Japan and China are battling it out to build Indonesia’s first high-speed railway between Jakarta and Bandung, the project now has an unlikely opponent: Indonesian Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan.
Jonan, who once served as the director of PT KAI (the state-owned Indonesian company that manages the national railway) before stepping up to become minister, thinks a bullet train between Jakarta and Bandung is totally unnecessary.
This is mainly because the short distance between the two cities (around 150 km) doesn’t warrant a 300km/h train. He believes the train wouldn’t even have a long enough stretch of uninterrupted rail for the train get up to its top speed, as there would be 5 stations between the two cities.
“The travel time between stations would be 5 minutes, so accelerating [to 300km/h] would be unattainable. We’re advising that we don’t need high-speed trains,” Jonan said, as quoted by Kompas yesterday.
Jonan added that a high-speed train would be more ideal for longer distances, such as between Jakarta and Surabaya.
But that is actually the idea behind the proposed railway. Once the Jakarta-Bandung line is complete, the railway could realistically be extended all the way east to Surabaya.
For now, the government has scrapped plans to build the high-speed railway with the minister’s considerations in mind. Indonesia has instead asked China and Japan to submit new proposals for a “medium-speed” train that could travel up to 200km/h. This means the government’s decision on whether China or Japan will win the USD 6 billion project will be delayed by at least several more weeks.
