Indonesian cities set for $23 million grant to develop BRT

Five Indonesian cities will receive a share of a grant worth just over $23 million from the German, Swiss and UK governments to develop BRT services.

The cities are:

• Bandung in West Java
• Batam in Riau Islands
• Makassar in South Sulawesi
• Pekanbaru in Riau
• Semarang in Central Java

They will act as pilot cities to develop public transportation called Sutri Nama (Sustainable Urban Transport Programme Indonesia) and Indobus (Indonesian Bus Rapid Transit Corridor Development), which were launched in 2017, according to a report from a regional media outlet.

“The programme will be carried out in line with our commitment to reduce the use of personal vehicles, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce air pollution caused by transportation,” said the Transportation Ministry’s land transportation Director Budi Setyadi during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the ministry and the five regional governments on the joint pilot projects in Jakarta.

It’s expected that the pre-feasibility study around the project will take two years to complete to ensure that the selected cities, as well as several other potential pilot cities, are prepared. The BRT services are expected to finally be ready in 2022.

The projects will now progress to more tangible works involving the regional government in each pilot city such as preparing the detailed engineering design (DED) and making a master plan for each city.

“I will ask each regional government to deliver their presentation. The regional governments need to give their plan on whether they will need a specialised bus line for the transportation system and how many corridors they need for this project,” said Budi.

A senior governance policy advisor explained that the multi-million dollar grant will largely be used for research and studies into how to create the BRT systems, but that there are also funds specifically allocated to infrastructure and construction