Large Jumps During This Year's Eid Homecoming, Ministry Of Transportation Checks Toll Roads, Ports And Transportation Fleets

Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi. ANTARA/HO-Biro Communication and Public Information Ministry of Transportation/ANTARA

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Transportation (Kemenhub) has taken a number of steps to prepare for the implementation of Eid 2023 transportation so that the homecoming moment can run safely, safely, comfortably, and under control. The management of this year's Eid homecoming and backflow is very challenging, namely how to control a spike in the movement of people bigger than last year, which is predicted to reach 80 million people. "This spike is predicted to occur because this year the number of COVID-19 cases has decreased, there is no PPKM, and the economic situation has improved," said Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi as quoted from an official statement received in Jakarta, Antara, Friday, February 17. A number of steps have been taken since the beginning of this year, including preparing a survey of potential movement of community mobility during Eid 2023 transportation and carrying out safety inspections (ramp checks) on transportation facilities, both land, sea, air and rail. In the land sector, the Ministry of Transportation together with the Ministry of PUPR and the Korlantas Polri have checked the condition of the southern coast and the north coast of Java. The Minister of Transportation said that the implementation of Christmas and New Year's transportation and transportation in 2022 will become capital or an important provision to improve the performance of this year's Eid transportation services. "With the empirical experience of the previous year, we have identified a number of crucial points that have the potential for problems to occur if not handled properly," said the Minister of Transportation. A number of important things have been identified, namely the Jakarta toll road towards Central Java, where the Cipali toll road is a crucial point in the flow of homecoming and return. For this reason, intensive coordination is carried out with the Korlantas Polri. "We are the ones who make regulations but the implementation of traffic engineering and supervision and prosecution is carried out by the Korlantas Polri, both in the form of 'contraflow', 'one way', and other engineering. In addition, the addition of'rest area' on the toll road from Jakarta to the east also needs to be done because the number is considered insufficient," he said. Then, identification regarding Merak Port in the implementation of Lebaran 2022 transportation had occurred overcrowding. Currently, the Ministry of Transportation has prepared additional ferry ports to divert congestion in Merak and Bakauheni. "In Merak there is Ciwandan Port and in Sumatra, we have prepared the Panjang Port. We hope that the density in Merak-Bakauheni can be divided," said the Minister of Transportation. Furthermore, related to air connectivity, it is predicted that there will be congestion at a number of airports, namely: Bali, Makassar, Surabaya, and Medan. "We have coordinated with airlines to use large aircraft (wide bodies) which can carry once 400 people and increase aircraft operating hours from usually 12 hours to 18 hours so that aircraft rotation can be maximized. We are also coordinating with airport operators to increase airport operating hours," he said. A number of other things prepared by the Ministry of Transportation together with stakeholders to launch the implementation of Eid 2023 transportation, namely preparing a public transportation fleet to anticipate a surge in passengers and facilitating a free homecoming program to reduce the number of travelers using private vehicles, especially motorbikes. The Ministry of Transportation explained that as the evaluation of the implementation of Eid transportation in previous years, factors that were also important for the success of the implementation of Eid transportation, namely socialization and support from the mass media to convey the latest information related to policies and also educate the public to plan their journey properly.