The city administration will allocate part of its budget to buying a fleet of Transjakarta Busway buses for corridors 9 and 10.
Deputy Governor Prijanto said Thursday the administration would propose Rp 75 billion (US$7.3 million) from this year’s revised budget as a down payment for the purchase, and to continue the procurement process in the draft budget for 2010.
“We did the same thing when procuring buses for corridor 1. The buses will belong to us and we will hold a tender to determine who gets to operate the corridors, which will be based on who can offer the lowest fare per kilometer for bus travel,” he said.
He added the policy was aimed at preventing busway operators from threatening a strike, which could materialize if they owned the buses.
Prijanto also said the administration was determined to buy the buses from national companies rather than importing them.
Hendah Sunugroho, division head of land transportation at the city transportation agency, said corridors 9 and 10 would need 139 buses. Corridor 9 runs from Pinang Ranti in East Jakarta to Pluit in North Jakarta, while corridor 10 runs from Cililitan in East Jakarta to Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta.
“As far as I know, the 139 buses will cost us around Rp 300 billion. Right now, we’re drafting a bidding document with the help of the ITDP,” Hendah said.
He added the buses would be single-bodied and articulated ones, because the shelters along the corridors had been designed for long buses. Each articulated bus can carry up to 150 passengers, almost double the capacity of single-bodied buses.
The procurement process is expected to be complete by next year.
The long-delayed corridors 9 and 10 have sparked criticism. Corridor 8, which links Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta to Harmoni in Central Jakarta, was only launched last February.
Sugiyanta, deputy head of the Regional Planning Board (Bappeda), said transportation projects would account for much of the revised budget. He declined to go into details, saying the deliberation was still ongoing.
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