Director Of Transjakarta Complains That The Procurement Of Electric Buses Is More Expensive Than Diesel Fuel

The meeting of Commission B of the DKI DPRD with PT LRT Jakarta at the DKI DPRD on Wednesday 7 June. (Diah-VOI)

JAKARTA - President Director of PT Transjakarta Welfizon Yuza admitted that the procurement of electric buses to be added for transportation operations is more expensive than the diesel-fueled Transjakarta bus which has been operating for a long time.

This was revealed by Welfizon in a joint working meeting with Commission B of the DKI Jakarta DPRD and the ranks of the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government.

"The current cost of investing in electric buses is still quite large. Currently, we are paying more or less 30 percent more for electric buses than diesel," said Welfizon at the DKI Jakarta DPRD Building, Wednesday, June 7.

Currently, Transjakarta has operated 30 units of electric buses that are included in the procurement in 2022. It is planned that there will be an additional 70 electric buses that are currently in the process of being delivered.

Transjakarta also plans to add back to the procurement of hundreds of electric buses the following year.

However, the concern is that the capital for the procurement of electric buses will swell more than the procurement of diesel buses. According to Welfizon, this will increase the subsidy burden from the DKI Regional Budget to Transjakarta and private operators will also participate in the procurement of the electric bus.

Therefore, Welfizon hopes that the DKI Provincial Government and the DKI Jakarta DPRD can seek an incentive policy for Transjakarta to ease the burden on the procurement of electric buses and make it easier to apply for credit to private operators to buy electric buses to finance institutions.

"We encourage incentives related to electric buses to be provided by the government. It takes intervention from finance institutions, so that the process does not burden the operators who will enter the electric bus," said Welfizon.

Along with that, Transjakarta is also conducting an evaluation of the procurement and operation of electric buses that are currently paving to formulate the incentive needs needed by operators.

"We will evaluate it, both in terms of business and finance, in terms of operations and services, and also in terms of technicality. Therefore, we will see that we run 100 electric buses first, we evaluate them, while encouraging regulations related to the relaxation of electric buses can run," he concluded.