Photos of people behaving improperly at MRT stations and trains have gone viral on social media. This has led to employees of MRT Jakarta becoming increasingly aware that their tasks go beyond operating Jakarta’s first MRT service. They must also foster a new culture of using mass transportation in Jakarta.
On Tuesday (26/3/2019), there were no more incidents of passengers behaving improperly. This is despite the thousands of passengers flocking to Bundaran Hotel Indonesia (HI) Station to try out the MRT. Station officers were busy catering to a continuous flow of passengers with their seemingly endless questions.
“Officers are spread all over the stations with the same mindset: whenever we see passengers behaving not in line with proper mass transit principles, we will reprimand them. Whenever we see food lying around, we will place the trash where it belongs,” PT MRT Jakarta officer Bagas Jatikawentar, 23, said at Bundaran HI Station.
Bagas said most MRT passengers might not be used to the proper manners of riding th MRT as the rules were newly-implemented. However, such rules needed to ensure the pace, smoothness and comfort of the MRT service.
On using the escalator, for instance, people must always stand on the left side. The right side must be kept free for those in a hurry. Similar rules are already implemented in the KRL commuter line and Transjakarta bus rapid transit (BRT) services, especially during morning, afternoon and evening peak hours.
In reality, however, improper behavior persists. “There are officers on escalators to educate passengers,” Bagas said.
Another rule is to keep quiet so as not to disturb other passengers and to properly enter and exit MRT cars. Lines behind yellow lines to get into the MRT, as the green line in front of the screen doors are for those getting out. Prioritize passengers getting out of the train to avoid any incidents.
Many of these rules were violated during the two-week MRT public trial run. “We feel like we have to do everything, including educating passengers on ticketing, how to get into the train and how to behave in the stations and trains,” Bagas explained.
As the number of officers is limited, guiding thousands of passengers per day is a daunting task. Furthermore, stations have different number of officers on standby, depending on how large they are. In
large stations like Bundaran HI, there are 45 officers, including station head, security officers, station officers and janitors. Each train car usually has two or three officers. One train has one engineer.
Enforcing
During the trial run, one of three passenger gates in MRT stations is opened. This is to enforce passengers to learn how to line up. Also, the gates must not be touched so that it can automatically close.
Another way to enforce passengers is by implementing fines. MRT train engineer Joddy Gandhawardana, 22, said that a passenger once pressed the emergency button inside a train car. Now, there are notices inside the car, saying “Pressing the emergency button while not in emergency will incur fines.”
Passengers also have to be educated on how to use bathrooms properly. On Tuesday, janitors endlessly cleaned the bathroom floor from water puddles and used tissues left lying around. This is despite the presence of two trash cans in each bathroom.
International standard
Regional regulation (Perda) No. 3/2008 exist to support the MRT’s prime services. The Perda stipulates that PT MRT Jakarta will sign a contract with the city administration to provide international service standards.
PT MRT recruits potential young professionals, including from the Indonesian Railways Academy (API) in Madiun, East Java, and the Land Transportation College.
For human resource capacity training, PT MRT cooperates with Prasarana Malaysia, INKA, MTR Hong Kong, Len, state railway operator PT KAI and state electricity firm PT PLN. Best college graduates are hired as train engineers. They were given a six-month training at API, PT MRT Jakarta and Prasarana Malaysia.
To ensure high standards in operations and services, PT MRT Jakarta cooperates with a Japanese railway service company.
MRT Jakarta president director William P Sabandar said that he saw the passengers during MRT’s trial run as MRT ambassadors who would help the company in introducing new mass transit culture in Jakarta.
Officers like Bagas and Jody are part of these culture change ambassadors.