Jakarta Governor Says Out With Old Cars
Jakarta. Indonesia's capital is planning to limit access to the city’s roads for ageing vehicles by slapping heftier taxes on those that have passed a certain age.
“We don’t want the same kind of [traffic] policies that are implemented in Singapore or China — they are too harsh,” Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama said at City Hall on Friday.
Singapore car owners are required to buy a certificate of entitlement that is valid for only 10 years, despite the fact that a personal vehicle can operate safely for longer, up to 17 years. Cars that have reached their 10-year expiration date are scrapped. Then there is the additional registration fee, which ranges from 75 percent to 100 percent of the car’s market value depending on its age.
Basuki said a slightly more lenient policy was needed in Jakarta to reduce air pollution and accidents. The regulation, he said, would also force some car and motorcycle owners to leave their vehicles at home and switch to public transport.
“Our economy is not as advanced [as Singapore] so we will allow [people to have older cars],” he said. “But we want a vehicle’s age to be limited to, let’s say, 10 years."
“We are still working out the details of the regulation.”
An alternative would be to bar older vehicles from entering Jakarta’s major thoroughfares, Basuki added, particularly those streets where the planned electronic road pricing scheme will be applied. Officials say the ERP could be up and running as early as January 2016.
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