TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Jakarta government on Monday has enforced a policy that limits public transport’s operational hours after carrying out the coronavirus emergency status last week. This move is meant to limit the number of passengers across the city’s public transport which in turn reduces the chances of further spreading the virus among people.

Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan also called for any form of public transport passenger queues to done in an open space and within safe distances.

”The entire city personnel, police, and military command will be present In the field starting on Monday to assure that this policy is enforced,” said the governor.

City’s MRT Corporate Secretary Division Head, Muhamad Kamaluddin, announced that MRT trains will only be operable from 06:00 to 20:00 Indonesian Western Time (WIB) with 5-minute headways among trains during morning and evening rush hours. The headway is set at 10-minutes outside of the rush hours.

Kamal also said that the number of passengers carried by each MRT train will be limited to 60 passengers for each carriage, which equates to 360 passengers during one whole trip. This, he says, is designed to maintain social distancing that would reduce the risk of further spreading the coronavirus among people.

”We support the government’s announcement to keep people working, studying, and conduct religious practices from home in order to cut the coronavirus transmission chain,” said Kamal on Friday, March 20.

Other means of transportation in Jakarta that will also see limited operational hours and number of trips similar to that of MRT is PT KCI’s commuter line and Transjakarta buses. Commuter lines that originally operate 991 trains will only operate 276 for the next two weeks

Meanwhile, Transjakarta buses will only operate at BRT corridors with non-BRT services such as Minitrans, Mikrotrans, Royaltrans, and Perbatasan will be unavailable during the city’s coronavirus emergency status.

TAUFIK SIDDIQ | ADAM PRIREZA | YUSUF MANURUNG