Ministry Of Transportation Brings Good News: Electric Buses Will Operate In Bandung And Surabaya In 2021

Electric buses. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Transportation (Kemenhub) targets mass transportation of electric buses in Surabaya and Bandung to operate this year. This step is part of the government's commitment to accelerate the development of the domestic electric car industry.

This step is also in accordance with Presidential Regulation (Perpres) No. 55 of 2019 concerning the acceleration of the program to use battery-based electric vehicles for road transportation.

Director General of Land Transportation Budi Setiyadi explained that the electric buses that will be operated in Surabaya will serve two corridor routes. While in Bandung as much as one corridor.

Each corridor, said Budi, has a distance of 40 kilometers (km) with the transportation needs of 20 electric buses. So that in total this pilot project operates 60 units of electric buses.

"So there are two big cities in 2021 that we are doing to provide electric buses with a by-the-service scheme in Surabaya and those in Bandung," he said at the 'Launching Pilot Project of the Fuel-to-Electric Motorcycle Conversion Program', Wednesday, August 18. .

In addition to providing mass electric buses in Bandung and Surabaya, Budi said, the government will also replace airport buses with electric vehicles. This includes buses in tourist areas.

But unfortunately, Budi has not explained the details of the airport and which tourist attractions will be the pilot project.

"Secondly, we are encouraging electric bus vehicles at the airport to be replaced by electric buses and next we are planning to provide electric buses in several areas of the National Tourism Strategic Area (KSPN)," he said.

In terms of maintenance of electric vehicles, said Budi, the Ministry of Transportation has received two workshops that have applied for an official certificate from the government.

Furthermore, Budi said an assessment process is being carried out which includes the competence of human resources (HR), the availability of tools and the ability of the workshop to convert oil-fueled machines (BBM) to electric batteries.

"We also really hope that with the existence of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) after building this conversion workshop, it is hoped that other workshops that are still micro, small and medium enterprises or MSMEs can be fostered further. Because this is in line, many workshops may not have electricity, do not have the equipment," he said.