To Make Passengers More Comfortable, The Ministry Of Transportation Presents Bus Friends Service In Banyumas

Illustration of the BTS program (doc. Public Relations Ministry of Transportation)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Transportation (Kemenhub) through the Directorate General of Land Transportation (Dirjen Hubdat) is committed to providing convenient mass transportation services for the community. One of them is through the Buy The Service (BTS) program, which is given the iconic name Friends (Economical, Easy, Reliable and Convenient Transportation).

"Through the mandate in Law Number 22 Year 2009 concerning Road Traffic and Transportation that the government must guarantee the availability of road-based mass transportation in both urban and rural areas," said Director General of Land Transportation Budi Setiyadi in his statement, Friday, February 5.

This Bus service is planned to be present in Banyumas Regency after previously being present in 5 major cities, namely Palembang, Surakarta, Denpasar, Medan and Yogyakarta. He explained that the BTS program must implement the Pull and Push strategy.

The Pull Strategy is carried out by the central government by providing buses and licenses to operators. Meanwhile, the Push Strategy is an obligation of local governments to encourage people to shift from private vehicles to public transportation, such as Teman Bus.

"So there is space and time management with road space management, parking arrangements, and time management. In principle, there is traffic management that we do to encourage people to leave their private vehicles," continued Director General Budi.

In addition, for the success of the BTS program in Banyumas, it is also necessary to prepare the district government for the construction of bus stops, disseminate information to the public, make policies that favor public transportation, and survey traffic conditions before or after this program runs.

BTS aims to make people who previously used private vehicles switch to buses and public transportation which are expected to reduce the use of fuel oil (BBM) by the community. On the other hand, it can minimize the impact of economic loss and time loss due to congestion, reduce air pollution that pollutes the environment, and minimize traffic accidents, most of which come from motorized vehicles.

Director of Road Transportation of the Directorate General of Land Transportation, Ahmad Yani, said that Bus Friends in Banyumas will be present with three different corridors serving the Pasar Pon Terminal - Ajibarang Terminal, Corridor 2: Kebondalem Terminal - Bulupitu Terminal, and Corridor 3: Notog Terminal (Patikraja) - Lower Baturaden Terminal (Loop)

"Later Teman Bus will operate from 5 am to 9 or 10 pm. Corridor 1 will be facilitated with 16 bus units. Corridor 2 will be facilitated by 19 bus units, and corridor 3 will have 27 bus units. The total number of buses is 62 buses. "Corridor 3 is indeed more numerous than the others because the route is a loop or loop. This is what is special about the corridor in Banyumas," Yani continued.

Director Ahmad Yani also added that the indicator for the implementation of BTS that must be maintained is a 10-15 minute headway. This is prioritized so that there is no accumulation of passengers at the bus stop waiting too long for the bus.

In addition, other indicators are occupancy rate and number of users, number of accidents that occur during operations, speed of public transport, standard of vehicle conditions, and minimum service standards. Each Bus Friend service will be monitored through the existing dashboard at the Ministry of Transportation and the local Transportation Service.

On the dashboard you can see data regarding the number of passengers, load factor, and the amount of rupiah that must be paid. Any violations committed by the driver will be seen which will then be subject to sanctions in the form of payment in Rupiah.

As of December 31, 2020, the number of Teman Bus passengers already present in 5 major cities reached more than 2 million people with a total application user of more than 54 thousand users.

Banyumas is one of the districts selected as a pilot project for the application of the Buy The Service program. Given the total population of Banyumas as many as 1,776,918 people and recorded that there are 681,881 vehicles, it is deemed necessary to change people's habits to switch to public transportation modes.