The existence of public transportation in big cities is essential to fulfilling the needs of transportation mode services for the mobility of city residents every day. Likewise, with the presence of the Trans Jogja Bus which operates in the city of Yogyakarta and surrounding areas, there are currently 128 Trans Jogja buses that serve up to 15 thousand passengers each day. However, this public transportation service is considered still lacking in terms of facilities and infrastructure. The number of its fleet is deemed not to meet all the needs of Trans Jogja users. Therefore, a regional government’s policy is needed to support the increasing number of users of this mode of transportation. That raised in the monthly seminar titled Ojek Online, Threat, Complement or Nothing for Trans Jogja Bus? Organized by the Center for Transportation and Logistics Studies (Pustral) UGM in the UGM Pustral seminar room, Friday (21/2).
Pustral Expert Team, Dr. Muhammad Zudhy Irwan, S.T., M.T., said that every major city in the world has public transportation as a standard for cities that are considered livable. However, one of the challenges for the DIY government is to encourage its citizens to move to use public transportation from before using only private vehicles.
According to him, the challenge is not accessible if the Trans Jogja service has not optimized in addition to optimizing service routes that reach all levels of citizens and tourists. “The service is good enough, but how do you get people to take the city bus? In Singapore, for example, if they ride public transportation, their expenditure per month is only 7 per cent for shipping. If they don’t eat, the costs will be more significant because of parking fees,” he said.
While the existence of an online motorcycle taxi application according to him does not have a direct impact on the mode of public transportation Trans Jogja. New users more dominate online motorcycle taxi users in DIY compared to Trans Jogja bus users. “If they (Trans Jogja users) cannot access the Trans Jogja bus, they may return to the motorbike, or they request for a shuttle,” he said.
To increase the number of Trans Jogja users, he suggested that service quality improvements be carried out, for example, by providing voucher promotions and free tickets. “Aside from that, expanding the reach and improvement of routes and the socialization of the Trans Jogja bus ride campaign,” he said.
Head of Transportation Section of Yogyakarta City Transportation Department, Dani Istiarto, said that the provincial government holds the management of Trans Jogja. However, one of the policies carried out by the city government to encourage users of the Trans Jogja service is to implement a car-free day policy in the Malioboro region in which carried out every Tuesday Wage. “On that day only Trans Jogja buses, horse carts and pedicabs can pass the Malioboro road,” he said.
He added that the city administration plans to implement the same thing in certain areas for car-free day activities. Besides, his party will also apply a progressive parking tax, and there is an increase in parking rates high enough in the Malioboro area to encourage citizens to ride Trans Jogja.
He mentioned the problem of Trans Jogja, which has been lacking in the improvement of facilities and infrastructure because funding allocations are still very minimal. “Subsidies of Rp7.2 billion per month, I think, are still very lacking for the addition of facilities and infrastructure. Not to mention, the procurement of buses requires a substantial fee. Now there are only 128 buses, our calculation, DIY needs at least 500 buses with the optimized route, “he said.
Author: Gusti Grehenson
Translator: Natasa Adelayanti