Starting Preparation For The 2023 Eid Transport, ASDP Immediately Coordinates With Several Ministries And Institutions

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - PT ASDP Indonesia Ferry (Persero) has started preparing the Lebaran 2023 Transport service which will be implemented in the next few months.

"To prepare for the 2023 Eid Transport service which remains in a matter of months, ASDP will immediately carry out intensive coordination with stakeholders," said ASDP Corporate Secretary Shelvy Arifin as quoted by Antara, Monday, January 9.

Shelvy said ASDP would coordinate with relevant stakeholders starting from the Ministry of Transportation, Korlantas Polri, Kemenko PMK, Kemenko Maritime Affairs and Investment, Regional Government and others.

In addition, management will also accelerate the expansion of port capacity to increase vehicle capacity at ports and expand port entry areas.

He said ASDP had successfully served around 2.67 million passengers and 654,000 vehicles during the 2022 Christmas and 2023 New Year periods.

According to him, even though it was not as high as during the 2022 Eid Transport, the characteristics remained the same, an increase in Christmas-New Year traffic occurred in line with the sloping conditions of the spread of COVID-19.

"In this Nataru period and at the same time as the revocation of PPKM status by President Joko Widodo, the public is enthusiastic about returning to year-end holiday trips, which also coincides with school children's holidays," he said.

Shelvy further revealed, through purchasing tickets via online Ferizy and implementing quotas on served cargo, ASDP ensures that passenger traffic and vehicles can be properly distributed so as to minimize queues at ports both during departure and return flow.

He added that there were several records of experience in the 2023 Christmas and New Year's Transport service yesterday, namely the occurrence of extreme weather conditions on several crossing routes managed by ASDP.

In addition to extreme weather, ASDP's priority regarding the safety and security of ferry transport services is vehicle accidents when loading on ferry transport ships including the crash of Over Dimensions Over Loading (ODOL) vehicles.

"This is of course a concern and a joint commitment from ferry stakeholders. All parties must be able to coordinate actively, and the important thing is also understanding SOPs by ship operators, so as to minimize potential or prevent incidents from occurring during service," he said.