Jakarta – Despite millions of vehicles having left Jakarta to return to their hometowns during the Idul Fitri mudik (exodus) season, a large number are still yet to depart, says state-owned toll operator PT Jasa Marga.
It expects that the heavy traffic on toll roads in Java since last week will continue until Friday, two days after Idul Fitri.
"By Monday afternoon, we calculated that around 40 percent of people had not gone for mudik, totaling around 750,000 vehicles," Jasa Marga president director Subakti Syukur told a press conference on Monday night, as quoted by Kumparan.
According to Jasa Marga, 1.23 million vehicles had left Jakarta from Wednesday of last week to Tuesday of this week. This figure is 51.5 percent higher than on a normal day, and 2.2 percent higher than last year's exodus season, CNBC Indonesia reported. The majority of these vehicles are heading east to Central Java, East Java and Yogyakarta.
To prevent traffic congestion, authorities have decided to continue imposing one-way traffic from kilometer 72 of the Cikopo-Palimanan (Cipali) toll road in West Java to km 414 of the Semarang-Batang toll road in Central Java until Tuesday afternoon. The odd-even rules, an alternate-day travel restriction based on license plate numbers, also apply there.
However, authorities have stopped imposing counterflow lanes from km 0 to 72 of the Cipali toll road, as the volume of passing vehicles has eased.
Counterflow lanes received criticism after a head-on collision involving a minibus, a bus and an SUV occurred at km 58 of the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road in Karawang, West Java, on Monday morning that left all 12 people on board the minibus dead.
The police are still investigating why the minibus in a counterflow lane changed lanes and crashed into the oncoming bus.
But after an evaluation on Monday night, the police decided to continue the counterflow lane policy across the trans-Java toll road network during mudik, but its implementation will depend on traffic conditions.
Over the weekend, a huge traffic jam reportedly spanning more than 10 km occurred at Merak Port in Banten, which connects the western part of Java Island with Sumatra Island. However, the traffic had eased by Monday. (ahp)