Regarding ERP Policy, Observer: No Matter How Good Public Transportation Is, It Will Not Make It Comfortable To Ride A Car

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Advocacy and Community Sector of the Indonesian Transportation Society (MTI) Djoko Setijowarno said that the electronic paid road pricing (ERP) policy needed to be supported.

Even so, Djoko cannot deny that there will be a rejection in its application. He said that most of theolakers would later ask the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government to first improve existing public transportation.

"No matter how good public transportation is, for example, the MRT has been built in all corners of Jakarta, still it will not be able to beat the comfort of using a car," Djoko said in a written statement, Thursday, January 19.

According to Djoko, some people will continue to choose to drive a private car for reasons of flexibility, privacy, prestige, social status, door to door, and so on.

"The implementation of ERP by the community is forced to be rational in choosing the mode of public transportation. Users of private vehicles must be forced to get out of the car and want to take public transportation," he said.

Still, Djoko said, the implementation of ERP is a system developed for restrictions on private vehicles which is a derivative of travel demand management or transportation demand management (TDM).

The goal is to reduce the demand for road use to a point, where the demand for road use no longer exceeds the capacity of the road.

"With the ERP implementation, there is a choice of drivers to pay and enjoy travel, change travel times to pay cheaper, change routes, change types of conveyances, change travel destinations, and cancel travel," he said.

For your information, the Provincial Government (Pemprov) of DKI Jakarta will implement a paid road or electronic road pricing (ERP) on 25 roads in the capital city to improve traffic movement control, this year.

This policy is considered the right step to reduce congestion in the capital city of DKI Jakarta.