After a 13-year absence, I had the chance to visit the Indonesian capital Jakarta again, and as luck would have it I landed on the 2nd operating day of the long-awaited Jakarta MRT. So of course I went to check it out: I rode the MRT from end to end at Bundaran HI to Lebak Bulus, covering 15.7 km in 30 min, then backtracked to my office in the Sudirman CBD business district near Istora station.

Underground stations: Bundaran HI and Istora











The MRT’s 6 underground stations all look pretty much identical. 4 sloped, not terribly distinctive entrances from the ground, ticketing concourse underground, another escalator down to an island platform with trains running on the right side (although Indonesia drives on the left). Decoration is sparse to non-existent, with grey walls, a few orange highlights and occasional signage in the MRT’s distinctive shade of dark blue.









Since this was the first week of operation, tickets were not on sale yet and in fact the ticketing offices looked very unready to start operating next Monday, not least because fares were only decided this week. Also, is a single ticket machine really going to be handle the load?

That said, while rides are free this week, it wasn’t quite a free for all either, as you were supposed to have a barcoded ticket you can get online. Fortunately, as a bule gila (crazy foreigner) I was waved through anyway and even handed a printed barcode by friendly staff. Indonesian hospitality for the win!

Elevated station: Lebak Bulus







The 7 stations at the south end are all elevated and once again cast from an identical mold repeating the same pattern: ground, ticketing concourse, escalators up to side platforms. The design is sparse but elegant, with large white sails providing shelter while allowing breezes and half-height platform doors stopping passengers from falling onto the tracks.







Southern terminal Lebak Bulus is next to a depot of the same name, guarded by one of the countless mosques that dot the city.

Trains









The MRT uses modern rolling stock built by Japanese manufacturer Nippon Sharyo. The insides of the 6-car trainsets are spacious and built to handle crowds. Announcements are made in Indonesian and English at every station, with the station names jarringly read by a different voice from the rest and repeated to boot: “Stasiun berakhir <pause> LEBAK BULUS GRAB. LEBAK BULUS GRAB.” These announcements also include the stations’ commercial sponsors. Electronic signage is limited to small displays above the doors, which use illegibly small fonts to boot — a general theme for the system. Regular visitors to Japan will recognize the door opening and chimes, which are identical to those used in Tokyo.

Signage









Given that this is a brand new system built by the Japanese, who are generally masters of this stuff, signage in the system is really quite astonishingly bad. Not only is there very little of it, but font sizes are tiny, meaning you really need to squint, particularly for the line strip maps (top right) that are drawn in thin white on reflective black. The system also lacks a strong logo, with the “MJ” squiggle above used on occasion, but there’s nothing to distinguish MRT station entrances from random underpasses unless you’re close enough to read the signs.





Station maps are not much better: the ones on the platform show exit letters, but give no clue about what’s nearby. Only at Istora station tucked away in a corner outside the paid area was I able to find a proper vicinity map.

Overall

From a technological point of view, the MRT is a marvel and the first modern and efficient mode of public transport this megacity, soon set to be the world’s biggest, has ever seen.





My biggest surprise with the MRT, though, was its lack of popularity: the trains were rattlingly empty at 8-9 AM, which should be peak hour, and many of my fellow passengers were clearly tourists like me. Doubtless newness and the complicated free-but-book-in-advance ticket system are tamping down demand, but the limited route may also be somewhat to blame. The Bundaran HI to Blok M stretch of the route runs along Jakarta’s main drag Jalan Sudirman and parallels a highly successful Transjakarta busway line, so you’d expect this to be popular, but the final stretch to Lebak Bulus doesn’t really connect to anywhere: I suspect this was mostly chosen because there was free space for the depot.

Poor integration to other transport is also a major issue. The north end of the line has two sensible interchanges, one to the busway at Bundaran Hi and one at Dukuh Atas to the commuter rail network at Sudirman, but the south end has nothing. Work on a northern extension towards Kota and the old city officially started only last weekend with a target of 2024, while a east-west line remains on the drawing board and no southern extensions are even planned. The Jakarta LRT still has not opened and will not be anywhere near the MRT when it does, although there are vague plans for extensions. The only real hope is the 43 km Jabodebek (Greater Jakarta) LRT, which will connect a swathe of southeastern Jakarta to the MRT at Dukuh Atas. It’s around half complete as I type and might be open around 2021 if all goes well, although it’s already two years late.







On a more local level, Jakarta remains an extraordinarily pedestrian-hostile city and there appear to be precisely zero direct entrances from the MRT into the countless shopping malls and office buildings along the route — again a great contrast to Japan, where this is done as a matter of course.

All that said, it’s a good start, and at least it’s built and open — which is more than can be said for the twice-cancelled Jakarta Monorail. Here’s hoping it will take less than 13 years for the next line to come along.