Everybody knows that the only way Jakarta will ever be able to overcome its massive macet problems is if a large percentage of people choose to use public transportation instead of private vehicles. It has long seemed like that would be an an almost insurmountable obstacle given the capital’s patchy and inconvenient public transport options, but newly released data from PT Transportation Jakarta, the management company of the TransJakarta bus system, shows that there may be hope.
According to their data, the TransJakarta just hit a new record for the highest number of passengers ever in a single month ever in August, with 11,583,458 passengers in total for the entire month, averaging out to about 373,659 people per day.
The previous record was set in June of this year, with 10.206 million passengers, showing a steep increase after a dropoff in passengers in July due to the Idul Fitri holiday.
And although the August numbers are the highest yet, they are in line with the trend which saw 2016 start with 8.51 million passengers in January and steadily increase each month throughout the year.
The head of public relations for PT Transjakarta, Prasetia Budi, attributed the increase in passengers to the implementation of the odd-even system, the addition of new bus routes, the increased number of available buses, and improved sterilization efforts to keep busway lanes clear of private cars.
Although 373,659 passengers per day still represents a small percentage of the overall number of daily commuters in Jakarta, the fact that that number is steadily and strongly increasing should make people at least a little optimistic that public transportation could eventually take a big bite out of Jakarta’s traffic woes, especially after the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) systems are completed in the next few years.
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