Palembang on Thursday Feb 19,2009. Minister of Transportation Jusman Syafii Djamal commenced the first railbus operations in Indonesia. Railbus is combination between railway and light bus construction. The cost of building a railbus is much cheaper than a train with shortened production time. The railbus developed by state owned PT. INKA (Train Industry Corporation). Railbus namely Kertalaya, serves mostly college students from University of Sriwijaya who will be going to their campus in Inderalaya from Palembang. It is supposed to reduce road congestion and road accident in between Palembang to Inderalaya. Railbus speed is up to 100km/hour, faster than speed of train at 50 – 80 km/hour. Other city in Indonesia will be the next implementation. Many old trains soon will be replaced by this kind of railbus. PT. INKA has been made order from Yogyakarta as well. Yogyakarta is well known as city of students where many people from across the country studied there in College and Universities all over the city. It has also been proposed to have rail bus in Surabaya which well known also for its problematic road congestion. So, where is the future of Busway?

Jakarta is a convenience place to live with many shopping malls at close proximity. There is no place that is not strategic. Maybe in the past you would never live in certain part of Jakarta because lacking of entertainment spot. But now you can live in any side of Jakarta and may found several shopping malls in just few minutes drop.
Yeah, a few minutes drop driving cars and maybe it takes one or maybe more hours to spend your time in the shopping mall. Recently, I have seen two malls offer shoppers with Free parking in limited time up to 2 hours. Is it any good for shoppers? for those who like window shopping or maybe take long shopping list, this sure will make a big smile. Also for an efficient one, it would be an advantage too since they did not have to pay parking lot rent as it used to be in another malls.
So, what’s the catch for the mall it self? Did they lost the opportunity from cashing in their multiple-Decker parking lot? Some made it clearly for the benefit of tenants and the other just smarter than the average mall management. In Mal Kelapa Gadding (MKG) shoppers are eligible to have limited an hour free parking voucher by showing shopping bills where minimal shopping amount is applied. Some shopper will go in hurry to redeem the bills in the specified counter. Some of them just walk straight to the parking lot for not taking the opportunity. But, there is the real smarter than average malls in Jakarta. Mal Taman Aggreko (MTA) offers their shoppers with free parking lot rent up until 2 hours with limitation applied to car only and not including basement parking. It is surely heaven. I rarely used basement parking because I prefer to go to MTA's multiple-Decker parking lot.
If it is not a marketing goofy, so what is it really all about? I’ve been thinking a lot with this to find the answer. What’s the catch for the MTA? Thinking about it , I saw unusual sight in several parking floors. I remember that these floor is always available for parking but recently tagged with VALET Parking. Yes! this is the right answer. I think. MTA still gets surplus from parking lot rent by adding floors to the Valet. The reduction of surplus of non-Valet parking cleverly offset by the increasing surplus from its new lots of Valet services. For in a while MTA still maintain its shoppers and tenants satisfaction level. I would say that this is a Blue Ocean Strategy, isn’t it?

We are cyclist always be fast either on downhill session or on the street. That's why we have more than one Wheel Set. One set for descending the weekend, and saving the others for commuting on the street. This video from streetfilms is about re-timing signal for Cyclist on the road. Fasten your seatbelt...

Bicyclists fear getting hit from behind and so request Bike Lane (BL), but not for the experience one. Many collision scenarios between Bicyclist and motorist are come in front not from behind. Collision between motorist and bicyclist happened to be on the road intersection where car in a reverse way turning left or right. If The Bicyclist is experience enough there is little chance of accident.

There has been talk about Jakarta having BL from Blok M in the South Jakarta to Taman Suropati in Central Jakarta. Last month in December 2008 , Fauzi Bowo , The Governor of DKI Jakarta, said that BL development was pending due to lack of user (bicyclist). I’m not saying that Jakarta has so much bicyclist counting thousand member of Bike to Work (B2W) Indonesia and also thousand member of web based communities sepedaku.com . Some might say that this is political phrase into a negative way of having BL in Jakarta.

So what is Bike Lane? Is it worth for having it in Jakarta? Let’s talk about it. Road is being used by motorists (car&motorcycle) and they have to share it with other vehicle such as Bicycle and often with people side walking. Jakarta is hell of traffic ubiquitously on my sayings. From working days to weekend also in the long holidays, Jakarta’s traffic is hardly to beat. In between motorist and bicyclist there are plenty space on the road that has to be share. Bike Lane draw clear stripe in the street side that only allowed bicyclist to use it on road. It will look alike Bus way Lane in Jakarta but not with concrete divider.

Another form actually lost in discussion on making bicyclist safe is Wide Curb Lane (WCL). This WCL is a shared-use lane but wider and not congruent in size between the left one and the right one. Imagine that one road is divided by dashing line in the middle but the left side is wider than the one in the right. This wider lane is shared use by motorist and bicyclist. Practically WCL is BL without clear stripe where motorist can go high speed without causing hazard to bicyclist in the side. BL is typically touted as increasing bicyclist safety. Both simply provide space and thus comfort to bicyclists, and ease of passing for motorists. The stripe for BL is perceived as Safety for Bicyclist but in many studies has never been shown to actually increase safety as defined by reduced collisions.

I think we should look that providing space to bicyclist on the road is a good way to respect bicyclist on road. Bicyclist ought to have same rights on using road. The Government of DKI Jakarta should make feasibility studies whether having BL or WCL to cater the voice of increasing Bicyclist all over Jakarta. BL is best used based on best practices, if at all, on higher speed roads with few driveways, intersections, and turning movements for bicyclists and motorists, the lack of high speed bicycle descents. Otherwise on low speed roads would be better served with WCL.

Martin Jörss, Daniel E. Powell, and Christoph Wolff wrote on McKinsey Quarterly:
Bus and train systems habitually run at a loss. But public-transit agencies could lower costs and raise the quality of service by emulating best practices from around the world.

PPD, a state owned Transportation Company, running at Loss (as always, no surprise). ORGANDA (Transporter Association) was reluctant to drop fare due to gasoline dropping price at local Gas Station. They are just a few examples of our street car low productivity but by all means reflecting all of transportation provider in Indonesia.

So much in disguise if we think about transportation problem, especially in Jakarta the Metropolis City How did PT KA (State owned Train Railway Company)running at lost too every semester by watching people always in heavy packed in the train? Once my Lecturer said that,” If the Government allowed me to build my own train company, I will surely grab it! It must be profitable!” Competition is the Key. PTKA run the company aims without sense of competitiveness. They did not make subtle improvement. Just because they are no competitor at all. The existence of Competitor should be the catalyst for PTKA to be a profitable company.

Jorss,Powell, and wolff clearly stated that bus and train operators habitually run at loss. From Paris Metro to Manhattan, all share some characteristics of lack productivity and running in deficits. Deficits are all over caused by from route design, fare structure to labor related management.

For a railway transport there should be development of new privateers to make this route competitive and profitable. Bus and microbus(angkot) will be an implementation of short term strategy from each provider. It means that depreciation of vehicle is very fast, a four year depreciation, if I am not mistaken regarding to tax regulation. So every transport provider should make strategy based on that ,therefore they can well-maintained their fleets that always the voice of complaint for them to raise current fare. Whenever fleets are broken, it did not aligned with in-date company risk, strategy and operations.There is no strategy and risk management but doing efficiency by cannibalizing components from one vehicle to another without buying a new one. If it's the nature of the business, I would agree in a point to Blue Bird that being strategic focus on the image to prevent them from energy and economic crisis.