Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Minister of Transportation (Menhub) Budi Karya Sumadi opened up about the cause of the “horror” traffic jam at Merak Port during the 2024 Eid homecoming flow. One of the problems was caused by travelers.
Budi said that the number of passengers at Merak Port had increased by 65% compared to the average number of passengers during normal times or outside the homecoming period. However, 38% did not comply with the government's advice to buy tickets online.
“It's true what Mr Jokowi said, there was a bit of a problem in Merak. Why in Merak? Merak suddenly rose 65% one day. So Merak has two problems, suddenly it rose 65% and we mentioned that people who come have to buy tickets. “1 day before, but 38% of them didn't buy tickets, they joined the queue,” said Budi when met at the Ministry of Transportation's Halal Bihalal event, Jakarta, Wednesday (10/4/2024).
Because travelers who had not purchased tickets online joined the queue to enter the ship, Budi said, the flow of traffic on board the ship became congested. When they wanted to be transferred to Ciwandan Harbor, they refused and were reluctant to get out of the queue.
“Then we want to move it to Ciwandan he said that moved I'll just stop here when I go to Ciwandan. “So there are things we do that are discretionary. In the end, we can see that there are people selling tickets on the street because of that, so it's not because of anything, we don't want to have a dialogue,” said Budi.
For information, the horror traffic jam in Merak has become the focus of foreign media, one of which is foreign media from Singapore, The Straits Times, through an article entitled 'Indonesia's annual exodus starts ahead of Eid al-Fitr festival' which was released on Tuesday (9/4/ 2024).
In the article, it was stated that there was extreme congestion at Merak Port. Based on monitoring, thousands of vehicles were seen heading towards the port located in Cilegon, Banten.
“Drone footage on April 8 showed thousands of vehicles queuing to enter the ferry, while many more were on the road to the port, which stretches far beyond Merak,” the media report said.
|
Photo: (REUTERS/Yuddy Cahya)
Aerial photos show that at the peak of Eid day or H-1 (9/4/2024), queues of vehicles at Merak port, Banten are still occurring. (REUTERS/Yuddy Cahya Budiman) |
Aditya Nugraha (21), a resident who was going home said that he had been stuck for almost 13 hours in traffic on the way to the port. He plans to return home from Jakarta to his hometown in Palembang on the island of Sumatra.
“We left home last night around 9 o'clock, and now it's 13 o'clock and we are still stuck in this very long traffic jam. Hopefully, there will be a solution to this problem soon,” said Aditya, as reported by Reuters.
Based on data from the Ministry of Transportation (Kemenhub), people living in Jakarta, a city with a population of 11 million people, have started leaving the capital since the weekend.
According to a ministry survey, around 193 million people are expected to travel during Eid celebrations in 2024, or around 56% more than the number of tourists during the Eid al-Fitr holiday in 2023.
The President Director of PT ASDP Indonesia Ferry (Persero) said that the increase in passenger and vehicle volume will occur during the 2024 Eid homecoming period. At least from D-7 to D-2 of Eid there were 682,657 people and 159,866 vehicles leaving Java for Sumatra.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
Next Article
Jokowi Appoints Budi Karya as Ad Interim PUPR Minister
(dce)