Anissa S. Febrina, Jakarta – On a Friday morning, among several people patiently waiting for the bus at a stop on the business strip Jl. HOS Cokroaminoto, is a man with a wad of Rp 1,000 bills on his left hand and a long scribbled note in his right.
"You can take it easy. (The last bus is) 10 minutes away," the man said to a kenek (driver's assistant) hanging from the front door of a Kopaja bus. The kenek handed Rp 2,000 to the man as he stepped down from the bus, calling out for passengers. With the money in his hand, the man quickly crossed off a number written on his list.
Maju Tobing, the man with the pile of money in his hands, makes his living from a profession that probably only exists in Indonesia's cities. He is what locals refer to as a "timer".
Officially employed by the bus company to collect a daily fee of Rp 8,000 from drivers, Tobing and his colleagues also take care of a raft of unofficial tasks. His monthly salary is Rp 200,000 but he receives a Rp 500 for every bus operating on his route each day. In Tobing's case, this is more than 100 vehicles.
One of his main duties is to tell drivers how much time has lapsed between the last bus picking up passengers and theirs.
With an increasing number of buses operating on a single route while the number of passengers stays the same, timers like Tobing let drivers know whether they need to speed on to their next stop or take it slowly.
"If the timer says that we are less than five minutes away from the last bus then we might as well take it slow because the passengers will already be on that one," said Dariman, who drives a Kopaja bus along the Lebak Bulus-Senen route.
With some 116 buses running this route, knowing when to stop and wait for passengers in one spot has a serious impact on a driver's daily income. "I also regulate how long a bus can stop in one place in order for the others behind not to have to wait too long," said Tobing.
Djumhana, 35, is also a timer, although he works with public minivans serving the Ciputat-Cinere route. He is paid Rp 4,000 a day by the drivers.
"For angkot, what we generally do is help them find passengers from their check points and warn those who occasionally try to turn around before reaching their destinations," he said.
"Some drivers often cheat when they run out of passengers before they reach the end of their routes. They turn around in places they shouldn't," Djumhana said, adding that such behavior resulted in a Rp 5,000 fine.
Aside from city laws, Jakarta's public transportation companies also have their own regulations, created in cooperation with the drivers. One regulation includes the amount of money to be paid to timers, but not all drivers agree with the rule.
"Sometimes I feel that timers are no more than thugs. Asking for money but doing nothing," complained a Metro Mini driver who asked not to be named. "They are supposed to help us whenever we get into trouble with the police, but the ones serving my routes rarely do that," he added.
Timers also serve as middlemen when drivers need to deal with tickets for traffic violations. The city's bus drivers are notorious for their creative ways of navigating traffic, making it important for the bus companies to have people to take care of things when the police get involved.
"Whenever someone gets a ticket, I have to take care of it. I go to the court, or, if I can, (take care of it) before the case goes to court. I get a settlement with the police," Tobing said.
When asked about such allegations, city police spokesman Sr. Commr. I Ketut Untung Yoga Ana said his office did not acknowledge the existence of such practices. "If you paid someone Rp 3,000 to expedite your ID card processing, no officials would know, right?" he said.
He said the police only acknowledged in-absentia trials for traffic violations, where a police officer represented the defendant. "They can pay an amount of money considered enough to pay the fine and the officers will submit it to the court. If there is any surplus, it will be returned," he said.
According to Tobing and several other timers, however, building a "good relationship" with police officers along their routes is essential to their jobs. "A packet of cigarettes or two a day helps us maintain that relationship. Just in case in the future we have a driver who runs over someone in the street," Tobing said.