Jakarta Commuter Trains to Be Lengthened to Meet Growing Demand
Jakarta. State-owned train operator KAI Commuter Jabodetabek (KJC) will add two carriages to its trains from next week to accommodate a growing number of passengers, its president director said on Friday.
KJC president director Nurul Fadhila said that KJC will boost the length of its KRL commuter trains in the Greater Jakarta area from 10 to 12 carriages, to be able to meet its target1.2 million daily passengers a year earlier than expected.
"We initially aimed to get 1.2 million passengers by 2019 but seeing the rising number of passengers, our prediction is that we can reach that target by 2018. Therefore we'll add more train carriages to serve passengers," Nurul said.
In 2013, there were 500,000 passengers riding KRL commuter trains each day, but that number has grown to more than 900,000 as of June this year.
The additional carriages will first be used on the Bogor to Jakarta route and later also on the Jakarta Kota to Bekasi route, as new carriages arrive.
Nurul said that one of the problems that still had to be overcome was the fact that many Jakarta train stations cannot accomodate trains with more than ten carriages, but he added that platforms will be lenghtened by the end of the year.
KJC's operations and marketing director Dwiyana Slamet Riyadi explained that lengthening the trains was the only way to allow for greater numbers of passengers to be transported, as adding more train trips will not be possible. The Bogor to Jakarta route, where trains pass every five to seven minutes, is already particularly busy, Dwiyana said.
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