Decreased LRT Passengers Since Charged Rates

Light Rail Transit (LRT) (Diah Ayu Wardani / VOI)

JAKARTA - Head of the DKI Jakarta Transportation Agency, Syafrin Liputo, admitted that passengers of the Jakarta Light Rail Transit (LRT) train have decreased since the Rp5 thousand tariff was applied.

During the trial period with a free rate from June to November 2019, the average LRT passenger along the 5.8 km ranges from 7-8 thousand per day. After paying since December until now, passengers have decreased to 4 thousand people per day.

"There is indeed a decrease in ridership after being declared paid. And of course we will continue to evaluate it because the ridership target is 14 thousand," said Syafrin at the City Hall of DKI, Central Jakarta, Friday, January 24.

Syafrin said that passengers would definitely increase again after the construction of the Phase 2 LRT with the Kelapa Gading-JIS Sunter route was completed and operational.

However, it will still take a long time. Therefore, efforts to increase passengers are currently carrying out massive integration with TransJakarta.

The integration is in the form of a skybridge as a connecting bridge between the LRT Kelapa Gading-Velodrome route and the TransJakarta bus on the Pulogadung-Dukuh Atas route.

"Now it is on the youth street. There is a TJ youth stop then the Velodrome LRT station we have integrated. There, people just need to go out 1 tap the card. As soon as tap out, they immediately tap into the LRT system and vice versa," explained Syafrin.

"We hope that by increasing the length, the service area will be wider so that it will increase ridership," he added.

For information, the application of this LRT commercial ticket starts at 5.30 WIB. The tariff of Rp. 5,000 per passenger for this trip ticket applies flat at all LRT stations which can be obtained through cash or non-cash transactions.

The Jakarta LRT has been undergoing trials for nearly five months since June 2019 with all passengers free. The number of passengers is claimed to increase every month. In fact, the number of passengers is said to have touched one million customers before commercial operations.

For ticket purchases, Passengers can use an electronic money card for a number of banks that work with LRT, including Bank DKI, Bank Mandiri, Bank BCA, BNI and BRI.