Jakarta’s busway system relies on having special lanes exclusively for TransJakarta buses to make them a faster and more attractive form of public transportation. But since they were first created, the government has struggled with keeping them clear, with car and motorcycle drivers stuck in macet routinely sneaking into the busway lanes for their own selfish reasons, and routinely getting away with it due to weak enforcement and small fines.
Today marks the start of the government’s latest “busway sterilisation” efforts to keep the lanes clear, not just for buses but for emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire trucks as well. In addition to stricter enforcement of the existing laws, authorities have upped the fine for motorcyclists caught in the busway to Rp 500k, up from Rp 250k before. In addition, police are only allowed to give violators blue tickets, which force them to pay the fine and cannot be challenged in court like the red tickets generally handed out by officers for traffic violations (which people often bribe the officers to get out of).
“I asked that they not use the red tickets, if they use those then the violators must go to court. There are those who will get out of it. There are also those willing to pay heavy fines. So just ticket them directly, give them blue tickets,” Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama said on Friday as quoted by Kompas.
The President Director of PT Jakarta Transportation (TransJakarta), Budi Kaliwono, said that Ahok also wanted the busway lanes sterilized so that ambulances could get through more easily. He also said that they would be adding more manual gates at busway lane openings so that police could better control who was entering and exiting.
Heavier fines certainly won’t help with a lack of enforcement. Detik observed that there were still plenty of motorcyclists in the Ragunan-Mampang busway lane this morning, despite police being on the scene.
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