Urban Transport in the OIC Megacities
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Traffic congestion
The main transport problem is pertinent traffic jams that cause much longer daily journey time to
work, especially for commuters from the peripheries, such as the City of Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and
Bekasi. This commute journeys are unavoidable due to the role of Jakarta as the main centre for
governmental and commercial activities and the role of the peripheries as settlement areas with few
employment opportunities.
In the last decade, the government has been restructuring the spatial structure by shifting
manufacturing activities from Jakarta to the periphery to reduce commute journeys to Jakarta.
However, this dynamic and rapid change of the urban structure is not supported by a well-planned
urban transport system. This situation has been worsening traffic problems in metropolitan Jakarta.
Growth of vehicles number vs road capacity
Transport problems also occur when the road network is insufficient to meet the increasing traffic
demand. The development of new roads can never catch up to the growth rate of vehicle ownership.
A new highway or a widened road only alleviates traffic congestion for a short period of time. After a
few years, any new or widened highway fills with traffic that would not have existed if the highway
had not been built, a phenomenon called induced demand. Because of induced demand, neither
building new roads nor widening existing roads are viable long-term solutions to traffic congestion.
On the other hand, attempts to reduce the private vehicles ownership rate will not be an easy way out.
Accounting for around 7% of the country’s gross domestic product, the automotive and supporting
industries are one of the most important sectors in Indonesia’s story of economic growth. Castrating
the automotive industry also means putting millions of jobs in jeopardy.
Weak parking strategy
Currently Jakarta does not have a
concrete and strict parking strategy
yet. Parking fees in Jakarta is the
second lowest worldwide, which
encourage people to use their cars.
Furthermore, most of the on street
parking locations are operated by
individuals who do not properly
report the parking revenue to the
government, causing massive ‘leak’
of government’s revenue from
parking. Attempts to encourage
these individuals to work at off
street parking areas under official
parking companies failed, due to
much less income that they will
receive.
In January 2015, the government of Jakarta launched a parking meter system to reduce the revenue
leak. At the time preparing this report, there is no information yet about the effectiveness of this
system to achieve this goal. However, the low parking fare ($0.15 per hour for motorcycles and $0.35
per hour for cars) still encourages people to use their private vehicles.
Figure 15:A new parking meter in Jakarta