A city school bus at the Blok M terminal in South Jakarta on Monday. City authorities rolled out 62 of the buses to stand in for MetroMinis whose owners took them off the streets on Monday in protest at a crackdown over safety violations. (Antara Photo/M. Agung Rajasa)

Jakarta. The Jakarta administration rolled out 62 school buses to fill in for some 200 MetroMini buses whose owners and drivers went on strike on Monday over a citywide crackdown.

The school buses were allocated by the city to four of the busiest terminals across the city: Senen in Central Jakarta, Rawamangun in East Jakarta, and Blok M and Pasar Minggu in South Jakarta.

Mohammad Insaf, the official in charge of managing the city’s school bus fleet, said that with public schools closed for the year-end holidays, the buses would be seconded to serve on existing MetroMini routes until a permanent solution was reached. “We’ll keep operating indefinitely,” he said.

He added that an increased police presence had been requested at some of the terminals where the school buses are operating, citing threats from MetroMini drivers and operators.

“We ran into some opposition earlier at Senen because of these school buses. That’s why we’ve now been assigned [security from] the police’s Mobile Brigade,” Insaf said.

The Jakarta administration, working with the city police, has in recent days been impounding the distinctive orange and blue buses by the dozen for a range of infractions, from lack of operating permits and driver’s licenses, to failed roadworthiness tests. More than 200 buses have been impounded as of Friday.

The crackdown has prompted complaints from owners of the buses, who said on Friday that they would keep their vehicles off the streets in protest.

‘Killing people’

The MetroMini crackdown is in response to two accidents this month involving the buses, in which a total of 19 people were killed. On Dec. 2, a MetroMini driver ignored warning signs and tried to go through a railroad crossing in West Jakarta. The vehicle was hit by a commuter train, killing 18 of the 24 people on board, including the driver.

On Dec. 16, a speeding MetroMini crashed into a woman and her 7-year-old son as they were standing by the side of the road in West Jakarta. The boy died and the mother suffered serious injuries.

Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, who on Sunday welcomed the planned strike, saying it would keep the buses from “continuing to kill people,” on Monday insisted he would not back down from his campaign to rid the city of buses that were not roadworthy.

“They’re trying to make me look bad by going on strike and depriving people of a ride,” he told reporters at City Hall. “But that’s fine, because I’ll keep on finding the bad MetroMinis and impounding them.”

The Jakarta Police chief, Insp. Gen. Tito Karnavian, backed the governor, saying there was no reason for the bus owners to go on strike if their vehicles were roadworthy and had all the requisite permits.

“[Regardless of] the strike, we’re going to check whether they have their route permits in order. If not, we’ll impound the buses. So go ahead and strike,” he said at a City Hall after a meeting with the governor.

Tito said a major factor for the poor condition of much of the MetroMini fleet was the ownership structure and the setoran, or commission, system on which drivers are paid.

The buses are owned by individuals, rather than a single company, who rent them out to drivers for a flat daily fee. The drivers have to pay the fee out of the fares they earn and take home only what is left over.

The competition for fares has resulted in reckless driving and conductors packing buses to overcrowding in a race to pick up as many passengers as possible.

Tito called on the MetroMini owners to take up Basuki’s offer, made two years ago, to pool their buses under a city-run scheme that would see them paid based on mileage rather than fares, and that would guarantee a fixed monthly salary for drivers and conductors.

“I urge you to accept the offer rather than continue with the setoran system,” he said, adding that the fractured ownership structure also meant there was no standardization in terms of the buses’ roadworthiness and safety.

“The governor wants to standardize this [mode of transport] in the interests of public safety,” Tito said.

Little impact

Not all MetroMini’s were off the streets on Monday, however, with dozens still operating in North Jakarta.

Sarifuddin, a MetroMini driver who operates daily out of the Tanjung Priok bus terminal, said he sympathized with other drivers who had gone on strike or had their vehicles impounded, but conceded that the city administration had a valid reason for its crackdown.

He said he was fortunate that the owner of the bus that he usually hired kept it properly maintained, adding he was confident that if he was pulled over by the authorities, they would find the vehicle and its papers in order.

“But I’m just worried that I’ll get stopped along the road by other [striking] MetroMini drivers,” Sarifuddin told the Jakarta Globe. “The city administration shouldn’t generalize about all MetroMinis; there are still owners who take care of their buses.”

Monday’s strike appears to have had little impact on commuters, with most of the affected routes already served by TransJakarta and other bus lines.

Samsul, who usually takes a MetroMini from Senen to Rawamangun, told the Globe that he knew about the strike ahead of time and planned to either take another bus or hail a motorcycle taxi from Go-Jek.

Niar, a Tanjung Priok resident, told the Globe that she supported the crackdown to weed out the dangerous buses and reckless drivers, in theory.

“I agree with the policy, but if you’re going to impound all the MetroMinis and not provide replacement buses, then it’s going to be hard on us commuters,” she said.

The Transportation Ministry has promised a fleet of 1,000 new buses for the Greater Jakarta area next year, although no specific timeline has been given.