Ministry tests land transport services

Alvin Darlanika Soedarjo, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A nationwide suitability and safety examination of land transportation vehicles conducted last month has revealed that most violations occur within inter-city transportation services, with vehicles often transgressing their designated routes.

The next most frequent violation involved vehicles operating without appropriate documents, the examination results show.

"Eventually, we'd like our land transportation vehicles to be safer for everybody," Directorate General for Land Transportation spokesman Djoko Sulastono told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

"Using other routes besides the permitted ones to pick up passengers means there is a strong demand for services in those areas. Such violations were committed by inter-province, inter-city, tourist and charter buses." he said.

To date, 3,318 vehicles have been examined.

Djoko said the directorate general focused specifically on examining inter-province transportation services, from which 161 vehicles were stopped.

"Around 71 percent of inter-province buses stopped for the examination had used routes other than the ones permitted and traveled without complete documents. Nearly 30 percent of them lacked legal proof of passing the transportation tests and have incomplete emergency equipment."

The directorate has so far received examination results from eight provinces -- Jakarta, Banten, Central Java, East Java, West Sumatra, North Sulawesi, East Kalimantan and Riau -- and is waiting for further data from other provincial administrations.

Violators received sanctions ranging from reprimands to the revocation of their operating licenses for individual vehicles. "Those who use illicit documents or drop their passengers before reaching their final destination will instantly have their permits revoked."

The directorate noted there were 65 companies and individuals caught violating transportation rules.

"We also have other routine examinations at local terminals across the country besides the simultaneous checking," he said.

The Indonesian Transportation Society believes that land transportation business demands are the reason behind the problem, with individual bus drivers bound to fare targets for their designated routes in order to meet company targets.

Transportation observer from Gadjah Mada University Heru Sutomo told the Post the government should spend more time helping existing transportation operators improve their efficiency rather than holding operations examinations.

"The trend with the local land transportation (sector) is that its market share has been going down over the years." During the 1980s, 55 percent of the population traveled by means of land transportation, whereas in the 2000-2001 period the figure slumped to 38 percent, Heru added.

"The government neglected this fact so I think the result of the examination would only get worse. There really should be more coherent guidance from the top."

This guidance, he said, could come in the form of encouragement from the government for small transportation operators to merge. An example of this, he added, is the TransJakarta Busway system initiated by the Jakarta city administration.