January 20, 2025
JAKARTA – The beginning of 2025 marked an end or temporary halt to public transportation services in several regions, including Bali and Yogyakarta, due to lack of funding from both central and regional governments.
Bali’s Trans Metro Dewata (TMD) bus service announced on New Year’s Day that it had ceased operations because the Buy The Service (BTS) subsidy fund from the Transportation Ministry, which had kept it running since September 2020 at an estimated Rp 90 billion (US$5.51 million) annually, had dried up.
The Bali Transportation Agency was negotiating with the ministry to resume the subsidy program for TMD, as the provincial administration had not allocated a sufficient budget to cover its operating cost this year, Tirto.id reported.
The closure sparked public outcry and a petition demanding TMS to resume its services that had gathered over 19,000 signatures as of Jan. 15.
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Ngurah Termana, a researcher at the World Resources Institute (WRI) Indonesia, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that TMD’s closure would exacerbate traffic conditions in Bali and fuel greater reliance on private vehicles. Currently, 95 percent of public mobility in the province relied on private vehicles, he said.
Bali saw severe traffic congestion in 2023 and a spate of viral videos showing tourists abandoning their taxis and wheeling their suitcases to Ngurah Rai airport, which many blamed due to a lack of public transit. A private group is set to build the island province’s first light rail transit (LRT), aiming for an operating date in 2028.
Budget cuts
The Transportation Ministry decided to slash this year’s budget for regional public transit development to just Rp 177 billion, down 60 percent from Rp 437 billion in 2024.
This was in line with a sweeping budget cut that occurred during the transition to President Prabowo Subianto’s administration.
Under the previous government, the ministry had inked a BTS subsidy contract with 11 regional administrations to fund local bus services. This included a provision for the ministry to hand over financing responsibilities to the regional budget after five years.
Bali and Yogyakarta are among the eight regions whose BTS contracts have expired, leading them to decide to discontinue their public transportation services starting on Jan. 1.
Surabaya, Makassar, Palembang and Surakarta have taken over at least one of several transit corridors, while Banjarmasin, Medan and Bandung opted to continue all existing services.
Other affected regions ceased operations starting on Jan. 1 and said they needed time to evaluate their transportation programs before making a decision, with timeframes varying from a few weeks to months.
Bogor has promised to resume the service by the end of the month, while Aceh has said services will be unavailable until further notice.
The Bali Transportation Agency said on Jan. 14 that it would resume services for one of six TMD corridors, but only starting in July.
Ahmad Yani, the interim land transportation director general, said on Jan. 1 that regional transportation programs under the BTS scheme must be “further carried out independently by the local administration” after five years, as contractually agreed between the ministry and each region.
Transportation Ministry spokesperson Budi Raharjo told the Post on Jan. 9 that the ministry was looking to expand the BTS subsidy scheme to reach other regions that had yet to benefit from it.
Meanwhile, the ministry encouraged Bali and Yogyakarta to continue their transit programs using their regional budgets, he said.
Low passenger use
Another issue is that after five years of operation, the majority of regional transit services were still seeing low usage.
The load factor for Bali’s TMD hovered at an average of just 26 percent, while Yogyakarta saw only slightly better at 33 percent, according to data from the Transportation Ministry. Only the transit services in Surabaya, Makassar and Balikpapan recorded an average load factor of over 50 percent.
The WRI’s Ngurah urged the government to periodically evaluate the effectiveness of transit operations and routes in each region.
While maintaining transit services required a commitment from the public to shift from private vehicles, Ngurah said a dedicated strategy was still needed to attract more people to opt for public transit.
“For example, by improving facilities at bus stops, providing feeder [services] to reach populated areas and adequate pedestrian access in the central area,” he suggested.
Djoko Setijowarno, an analyst with the Indonesian Transportation Society (MTI), told the Post on Jan. 7 that the government might want to consider pushing the public to rely more on public transit by implementing measures like the odd-even policy in Jakarta.
He also underscored that regional administrations’ lack of political will was a major reason behind the decline or stagnancy of regional public transportation services.
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At the same time, both urban and rural residents still viewed private vehicles as the most accessible mode of transportation, Djoko said, especially given that two-wheelers had been affordable for years to low-income earners.
However, low public transit use would lead to increased fuel consumption, congestion and traffic accidents each year, he said, with more congestion potentially harming economic growth because mobility was also linked to household consumption.