2014-2023, Transportation Ministry has constructed and reactivated 1,683 km of railway tracks
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Investor Daily - 2014-2023, Kemenhub bangun dan reaktivasi 1.683 km jalur KA
21 September 2023
By: Amrozi Amenan & Tri Murti
From 2014 to 2023, the Transportation Ministry has constructed and reactivated 1,683 kilometres (km) of railway tracks. The railway tracks include the railway tracks of Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway spanning 152.46 km (double-track railway), Jabodebek LRT spanning 49.21 km (double-track railway), South Sumatra LRT spanning 23.4 km (double-track railway), and Jakarta LRT spanning 5.8 km (double-track railway).
“Besides that, 1,900 km of railway tracks have been improved and rehabilitated, 145.24 km of railway tracks have been electrified, and 88 stations have been constructed/modernised,” Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said in Jakarta on Wednesday (20/9/2023).
The Railways Directorate General of the Transportation Ministry is targeting the total length of railway tracks in Indonesia to reach 7,451 km in 2024. Railways Director General Mohamad Risal Wasal mentioned that railway tracks reached 6,326 km in 2020, 6,466 km in 2021, 6,642 km in 2022, and 6,879 km as of August in 2023.
Based on the track quality index (TQI), the condition of the railway tracks can be included categories 1 and 2, which means the tracks can accommodate a speed of around 100 km per hour to 120 km per hour. They are set to reach 94% in 2024.
The Railways Directorate General is also targeting to increase the number of metropolitan cities that have rail-based mass transportation systems to six cities in 2024. Until August 2023, the Directorate General of Railways has developed rail-based mass transportation systems in four cities, namely Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, and Medan.
Eco-friendly
On the other hand, the Transportation Ministry stated that railways were a mode of transportation that has the potential to be an eco-friendly transportation backbone in Indonesia in the future.
“The service must be integrated, safe, comfortable, affordable, and reliable as an intercity and urban mass transportation backbone,” Railways Director General of the Transportation Ministry Mohamad Risal Wasal said at National Seminar: Green Financing Strategy in the Transportation Sector for Fair Railway Competitiveness in Jakarta yesterday.
Risal said that the potential could be seen from the energy consumption of railways compared to other mass transportation services. For example, to carry 1,500 people, railways only need three litres of fuel per kilometre. Meanwhile, the energy consumption is 0.0020 litre of fuel per kilometre per passenger.
The number is smaller than buses that carry 40 people and consumes 0.5 litres of fuel per kilometre. Its energy consumption reaches 0.0125 litre of fuel per kilometre per passenger.
On the other hand, the implementation of railway technologies in Indonesia has also made railways more reliable. It can be seen from the construction of MRT in Jakarta, Sky Train at Soekarno-Hatta Airport, Makassar – Pare-pare Railways, and LRT in Jabodebek (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, and Bekasi) that are minimising the use of private vehicles on roads.
Risal said that railway technologies in Indonesia also continued to develop. The government is planning to develop rolling highways that have a simpler handling process.
“By seeing what is happening, we are planning to improve railway construction to be more competitive, integrated, sophisticated, synergised with industries, affordable, and responsive,” he stated.
The Transportation Ministry, through the 2030 National Railway Master Plan (RIPNAS), is targeting to construct 10,524 kilometres of railway tracks in Indonesia. Other targets that are set in the RIPNAS include the provision of 2,839 locomotives and 34,178 carriages for passengers as well as 2,475 locomotives and 48,364 carriages for freight.
To achieve the target, Risal admits that the Transportation Ministry is implementing four efforts to optimise the existing railway infrastructure, which include maintaining and reactivating the railway infrastructure to improve the TQI category.
According to Risal, to reduce negative impacts on the environment, the construction of railway infrastructure is directed towards electrification, such as MRT, LRT, high-speed railways, cable cars, and other urban railways.
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