| |
1.
WHAT IS EU-INDONESIA SMALL PROJECT
FACILITY?
The EU-Indonesia
Small Projects Facility is an initiative of the European Commission to
promote economic co-operation between Indonesia and the European Union.
The programme supports small and innovative projects of high visibility
in areas of mutual interest to Indonesia and the EU.
2.
WHAT THE PROJECT WILL DO?
PUSTRAL
in partnership with Yogyakarta Province Local Communication Office and
Service Center Research, Karlstad University, Sweden has recently
received a grant from EU-Indonesia Small Projects Facility (SPF) to
conduct research on the organizational, operational and financial reform
on urban public transport industry in Yogyakarta. The project will take
12 months starting October 22, 2004 to October 21, 2005.
The
Financial and Organizational Reforms on Public Transport Industry
project aims at reforming the existing regulatory policies and
operational practices leading to an improved and more efficient urban
bus operation, without neglecting business and commercial elements. The
target groups for the actions are bus companies, local government
transport office of Yogyakarta Province as the planner. These would be
done through series of comprehensive researches/studies covering:
assessment on current system, operation, financing, regulations and
enforcement, development of a modern, commercial and customer oriented
strategy followed by training and workshops to government staffs and bus
operators on effective route and service planning, operational and
maintenance system, followed by a demo project as a showcase for better
operational system. This proposed scheme is in line with the Economy
theme in the call for proposal, which includes economic policy and
reform.
3. WHAT IS THE OBJECTIVES?
The
overal objectives of the project are to develop a model to reform
Indonesian urban public transport policy and practices taking Yogyakarta
as the case, to enhance service quality to a level comparable to that of
private transport, by improving efficiency in planning and operation
stages and raising the competitiveness of urban public transportation
industry, targeting to small and medium bus operators in the
anticipation of free market economy in the ASEAN region.
The
specific objectives of the project are:
-
To
investigate the root problems creating the current poor service
quality bus urban public transport, declining patronage to a serious
level that bus renewals failed, reduced the industry attractiveness
to private operators.
-
To
formulate a policy reform and deregulation in urban public transport
financing.
-
To
set an improved standard for urban public transport service with a
focus on small and medium-sized cities.
-
To
develop an improved institutional capability of the local government
in administering urban public transport system and in developing an
appropriate urban transport strategy.
-
To
create an improved efficiency and competitiveness of small and
medium size urban public transport operators.
4. WHY THE PROJECT IS NEEDED?
a.
Reasons for Reform
-
There
is an urgent need to rebuild the economic fundamentals and to reform
sectoral policies in order to fit it within the new economic
platform. It is predicted that urban economy would have a
significant contribution to the national economy. Therefore the
improvement of quality and efficiency of urban transport would have
a proffered effect in the economy. It is in the perspective of those
changes that transport development policy in Indonesia, including
urban public transport policy, would have to be reviewed and
reformed accordingly.
-
The
second reason is the implementation of decentralization, which is
mandated by Law Number 22-1999, Law Number 25-1999, and Government
Regulation Number 25-2000. The Laws, which had been taken effect
since April 2001, mark unprecedented big reforms in the Indonesian
modern history of political and administrative aspects of public
governance. The role of local governments would be playing a much
greater role in determining and navigating their own social-economic
courses.
-
The
third reason is that economic crisis and decentralization process
has resulted in the significant declining of transport development
budget. This is because state budgets have been heavily focused on
social safety net, re-structuring the monetary sector, and
re-capitalizing the banking sector. Except for very basic
infrastructures such as public roads, urban transit system, and
transport services in remote areas, government will no longer own,
build, and operate transport infrastructures that are perceived to
be economically feasible and can be operated efficiently and
professionally by private sectors. It is predicted, however, that
even after the crisis is over and economy has back to normal,
government spending on transport infrastructures will not as big as
before.
-
The
fourth reason is that government should have politic in urban public
transport because there have been a lot of evidences of high degree
of publicness and public sector obligation in public transport
undertakings.
b.
The Need Public Transport Reform
Big
reforms in urban public transport are in urgent need. This undertaking
should cover the establishment of new institutional setting, legal and
regulatory reforms, new pricing policy, and the elimination of red-tape
bureaucracy and illegal levies that has long been imposed to transit
operators. Special attention in the reforms should be given to small and
medium scale transit private operators that are providing feeder
services using mini buses and paratransit and running their services on
market mechanism basis. While city government would have some sort of
public ownership in the provision of line haul services, feeder services
should be left to the small and medium scale private operators.
To improve their efficiency and competitiveness, government would
have to embark in several policy changes.
First, the existence and function of city bus terminals have to
be reviewed. Local governments have long misappropriated terminals as
the source of revenues that are originally built as point of transfer.
As a result, thousands of small and large buses, including paratransit,
have been illogically forced to enter terminals, creating excessive,
unnecessary delay and congestion to the surrounding street networks.
Second, there must be a policy reform in the way the city
government providing route permits and licensing, including the
abolition of red-tape bureaucracy and other misconduct. The current
ill-fated procedure has caused an excessive numbers of paratransit and
small buses operating on the city streets. Third, any possible effort
should be looked at to assist the operators with a financial scheme in
the procurement of new buses and spare parts, for example through credit
programs and cooperatives, or through some sort of tax incentives.
c.
Relevance of the Action to the SPF Programme Objectives and
Priorities
At this
stage, example of good practise and expertise from other country is
needed to assist the process. Sweden as one of the member of EU states
could provide such expertise. In Sweden the public transportation system
is organised with the expressed purpose of making communications
available for all the people. In
the latest policy document from the government (Transportpolitik, 1998)
the purpose of the transportation system and policy is to develop an
efficient and sustainable supply of communication for the people and the
businesses in Sweden. In the
document, the transportation system is seen from four different
perspectives: social perspective, cultural perspective, economical
perspective, and ecological perspective. Recent developments in public
passenger transportation in Sweden have made the study of its service
management important. The competition between various means of
transportation as well as among different service providers has
increased considerably. In addition, series of researches involving
Swedish transport experts has been undertaken for the last two years in
Yogyakarta Province, with the Center of Transportation and Logistics
Studies at Gadjah Mada University as the facilitator.
The above
developed activities not only to comply with the objectives, but also in
accordance with the SPF programme. The SPF programme has described that
its objectives is to promote economic co-operation between the EU and
Indonesia and support the on-going reform process of the Indonesian
economy and systems of governance. The programme is design to reinforce
EU-Indonesia partnerships by further enhancing dialogue and research
between European and Indonesian civil society in various sectors of
mutual interest. Swedish
experts will share their knowledges and together with the Center for
Transportation and Logistics Studies at Gadjah Mada University and
supported by Local Communications Office through its annual budgeted
program could promote civil society dialogue to produce such reform.
This recommendation would be applied by the bus operators to provide a
better quality of service.
d.
List of target groups and estimated number of direct and indirect
beneficiaries
The
proposed project will have impacts to various components in the society,
namely:
e.
Reasons for the selection of the target groups and activities
Public
transport users constitute more than 50% of all daily travellers in
Yogyakarta- the most popular student city in Indonesia.
Most of them are student, low to medium income group in the
community. Actions favouring
them will keep sustaining the attractiveness of Yogyakarta and fighting
against the potential urban poverty resulting from degrading the public
transport services.
With very
limited natural resources, the Yogyakarta economy is largely dependent
on education and tourism industry. The
emerging dominance of private transport has reached to a degrading
traffic conditions. Severe
traffic congestions and high level of air pollution has been affecting
the attractiveness of Yogyakarta as a popular tourism city in Indonesia.
Unless a new approach of urban transport system development it is
feared that the amount of visitors will keep declining and hence
affecting the economy further. The declining patronage has resulted in
reduced public transport revenue to operators amounting over 30%.
Not only fleet renewals have failed to occur but also there is an
indication of bankruptcy. It
utmost important to save public transport industry by formulating new
approach and strategy.
|
|
|
