Building the momentum for transport electrification in Indonesia

Each morning, millions of Indonesians brace for battle not with the clock, but with the roads. Engines hum, horns blare, and motorcycles swarm like restless bees. It’s no longer just Jakarta choking on gridlock. From Surabaya to Bandung, Tangerang to Medan, our cities are grinding to a halt under the weight of unchecked congestion. But the real crisis isn’t just traffic it’s a broken promise. A promise of mobility. Of clean air. Of cities built for people, not machines. In Bandung, nearly 9 out of every 10 trips are taken by private vehicles. Not out of luxury but necessity. When public transport is unreliable or nonexistent, the motorbike becomes survival. Meanwhile, children and the elderly inhale toxic fumes, their lungs paying the price for our collective inaction. Air pollution is no longer an invisible threat it’s a daily reality, showing up in our hospitals, in our schools, in the lives cut short too soon.

The System That’s Failing Us

Public transport in Indonesia isn’t failing because people don’t want it. It’s failing because we stopped investing in it. In 2023, nearly half of our urban public transport systems stopped operating altogether. The other half? Struggling. Stripped bare by underfunding, lacking the frequency, coverage, and dignity people deserve. And the cost? IDR 77 trillion each year. That’s how much we lose to fuel burned in traffic jams, hours lost to delays, and hospital beds filled with patients breathing city smog. This isn’t just bad transport policy. It’s a slow-motion economic and social collapse.

A Beautiful Vision, Still Stuck in Neutral

Indonesia has made bold promises. Electrify 90% of urban transport by 2030. Electrify it all by 2045. Transition to 13 million electric motorbikes and 2 million electric cars by the end of this decade. But ambition without action is just a press release. As of late 2023, we’ve deployed fewer than 125 electric buses across all our cities. That’s less than 1% of the target. So where are the investments going? To incentives mainly for private 2 and 4 wheelers. But here’s the truth: we can’t electrify our way out of congestion with cars. A billion electric cars still mean a billion traffic jams. The real revolution starts with public transport and more specifically, the bus.

Why the Bus Is the Future

Look at any city where public transport works Singapore, Seoul, London and you’ll find the same equation: lots of buses, coming often, going everywhere. In those cities, there’s roughly 1 bus for every 1,000 people. In Jakarta? One for every 5,000. In other Indonesian cities, it’s far worse: one bus for every 22,000 people. That’s not a network. That’s a lifeline stretched too thin to hold anyone. Electric buses are more than machines on wheels. They are engines of public good. They slash emissions. They cut noise. They reduce operating costs. They carry the possibility of a cleaner, fairer city if we let them.

A Roadmap Exists. So Let’s Drive It.

We don’t need to guess what to do. Earlier this year, ITDP Indonesia released a National Roadmap and Incentive Program for electrifying public transport. The message is clear: don’t just replace old buses expand the fleet. Reach more people. Make public transport a first choice, not a last resort. Because this isn’t just about vehicles. It’s about values. Do we value the breath of a child more than the exhaust of a car? Do we believe that mobility is a right not a privilege? Do we want our cities to be livable, or merely passable?

The Time to Choose is Now

The road ahead is open. But we must choose the right vehicle. Electric buses won’t solve everything but they can start something. A shift toward equity, toward sustainability, toward a future where the air is cleaner, the roads are freer, and no one is left behind because they couldn’t afford a car. So let’s not wait for more studies or more summits. Let’s stop making excuses and start making buses. Let’s electrify public transport not because it’s trendy, but because it’s just. Because a better city starts with a better ride.

source:

https://itdp.org/2024/07/15/building-momentum-for-transport-electrification-in-indonesia/