Making TransJakarta a World Class BRT System - ITDP | Institute for ...

II. INSTITUTIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS
Good institutional structures should create incentives for the public sector and private
sector to provide an efficient and high quality transit service at as low a price as possible
to the public. The nature of contracts between public authorities and private operators
and service providers will create different types of incentives that encourage and
discourage different behaviors, some of which better serve the public interest than others.
Good institutional structures are a necessary but insufficient condition for a world class
public transit system.
TransJakarta has initiated what could be a profound transformation of how buses are
owned and operated in the city of Jakarta, with tremendous benefits for bus passengers.
Prior to TransJakarta, while bus ridership doubled from 1990 to 2000, to nearly 4 million
daily bus trips, the modal split for public transport in Jakarta was declining because of
poor quality service and the rapid increase in private motor vehicle use. While buses
operating in Jakarta increased from about 18,000 in 1990 to 22,000 buses in 2002, during
the same period, the number of private cars tripled, from about 500,000 to roughly 1.5
million, and motorcycles increased four –fold, from 800,000 to 3.2 million. As a result,
the roads in Jakarta have become increasingly congested, and the air more polluted.
Buses find themselves caught in severe congestion, which has increased their operating
costs, and cut into their profitability. This in turn led to aging bus fleets which generated
less customer satisfaction and more pollution. While the main problem was growing
private motor vehicle fleets, the undeveloped and poorly regulated nature of the Jakarta
bus sector was also a contributing factor.
Prior to the opening of TransJakarta, there were three types of bus ownership in the first
TransJakarta corridor. First, there is a public authority, PPD, which is operated under
the national Ministry of Communications and Transport. PPD has a small fleet of about
380 buses, and it continues to receive public subsidies from the national government.
The share of transit passengers and lines operated by PPD has been steadily declining
over the past 20 years. Secondly, there are three large private bus companies: Steady
Safe, Bianglala, and Mayasari Bakti. These big private bus operators own the buses and
the route licenses and “lease” their buses to individual operators/drivers on a daily basis.
The operator collects all the passenger revenues directly. These bus operators do not
follow any particular schedule, but they do have to follow the route assigned to that bus.
Finally, there are ‘collectives’, Metro Mini and Kopaja. These are fleets of buses owned
by smaller individual owners who pay a fee to a parent company for the right to operate
on one of their routes with their corporate identity. The owners in turn rent the vehicles
out to operators. In 2000, the average bus operator was paying some Rp.150,000 to the
owner to rent the bus (complete with the route license), and oil and fuel cost Rp.60,000
which is also paid by the driver directly. (Pambagio, Agus. 2000)
The allocation of bus lines in Jakarta is regulated by the Transportation Agency (Dinas
Perhubungan, or Dishub), which inherited this role from DLLAJ (Dinas Lalu Lintas dan
Angkutan Jalan Raya). The process of awarding the more lucrative routes to specific
Final Recommendations for TransJakarta, p. 23