So not only is Jakarta’s horrific traffic annoying, inconvenient, soul-sucking and madness-inducing, it also costs the city tens of trillions of rupiah in economic losses every year.
“Data shows that the material losses caused by traffic jams in Jakarta have reached Rp 65 trillion (~USD 4.9 billion) per year,” said Arie Setiadi Moerwanto, the head of the Research and Development Agency of the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry as quoted by Antara.
Arie said that figure included both the more obvious economic costs of the traffic (such as slowing down the movement of goods) as well as the estimate of indirect costs such as the psychological toll on road users and how that would decrease productivity.
The R&D head said that each different institution studying the problem had different data on roads and traffic, and that it was important to create a unified database of information to be able to tackle the problem effectively.
Considering how much money the macet costs Jakarta, we hope the central government will pour more money and resources into helping the Jakarta provincial government solve the problem.
