Govt to tighten freight capacity rule

Alvin Darlanika Soedarjo, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government plans to tighten the weight limit for trucks in an effort to increase highway safety and reduce road damage.

A spokesman for the Directorate General of Land Transportation at the Transportation Ministry, Djoko Sulaksono, said that while trucks were currently allowed to go over their carrying capacity by 90 percent -- so a truck with a capacity of 1 ton can carry up to 1.9 tons -- this would be reduced to 60 percent.

"In the past we tolerated overweight freighters because of the economy of scale. However, many overweight trucks have damaged roads and bridges across the country," he said Thursday.

He told The Jakarta Post that overweight freighters would now have to go back to their departure point or leave some of their load at warehouses at checking stations equipped with scale floors.

Scale floors, used to weigh vehicles and their cargoes, are installed at 130 checking stations across Indonesia. However, not all stations have warehouses to store excess cargo.

Several scale floors are managed by private companies, which the ministry believes are better at monitoring excess cargo.

"On Saturday, all heads of the provincial transportation agencies will meet in Merak, Banten, to assess progress on the monitoring measure. Of course we'd like to reach 0 percent excess but we have to do it gradually to be effective," Djoko said.

"The transportation chiefs would like to reach 30 percent of tolerance for the next phase if possible."

In 2005, transportation officials met in Bandung to discuss the issue. They all agreed that simultaneous action needed to be taken on overweight inter-province trucks to increase safety and reduce road damage.

"Since the Bandung meeting and greater monitoring efforts, the roads were less damaged this year compared to the years before," Djoko said.

"The Highway Directorate General at the Public Works Ministry has measured that the maximum tolerance our road infrastructure can take is 25 percent."

Djoko added that his office had encouraged companies to use other transportation means, such as rail or sea, although trucks have maintained their popularity because they are able to reach remote areas.

Traffic division head at the Directorate General of Land Transportation Hotma Simanjuntak told the Post that the monitoring was at its busiest in Java and Sumatra. "Trucks planning to drop their loads could call another truck to pick up the cargo at the station," he said.

Previously, Director General of Land Transportation Iskandar Abubakar said that the amendment of the land transportation law should include punishments for truck owners. Currently only truck drivers are fined for overweight trucks.