Indonesia's ‘Mudik’ trips pick up as govt trials traffic policies

This aerial picture shows traffic during afternoon rush hour in Jakarta on April 20, 2022. - AFP

JAKARTA, April 26 (Jakarta Post/ANN): Some Indonesians have begun departing to their hometowns to spend the Aidilfitri holiday with families and friends, a tradition known as mudik (exodus) in the Muslim-majority country, while the government has started trials of traffic management policies in anticipation of congestion along the country’s toll roads.

The government, citing the relatively controlled pandemic situation, has allowed people to go on mudik this year.

For millions of Muslims in Indonesia, particularly in heavily-populated Java, this year’s Aidilfitri will be the first time that they have been allowed to head home to reunite with families and relatives to celebrate the national holiday since the start of the pandemic.

Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi, who visited Soekarno Hatta International Airport – the country’s busiest airport, in Tangerang, Banten – on Sunday, said the airport had seen the number of passengers departing from the airport more than double over the past few days.

“Previously, the movement of passengers (outbound) from Soekarno Hatta was around 400 passengers per day. It has increased to 900 passengers per day over the past two days,” said Budi.

He went on to add that the increase in departures from the airport indicated that some people had heeded the government’s call to make their homebound trip earlier.

Budi said a number of passengers told him that they chose to go on mudik earlier to avoid congestion in the days before Aidilfitri, in addition to the more affordable ticket prices compared with the peak mudik period.

Organisation of Land Transportation Owners (Organda) secretary-general Ateng Aryono said that it had also seen an increase in domestic travel starting on Monday.

“The passengers’ departures are seen to almost all destinations,” said Ateng, adding that he expected more people would be traveling in the coming days as 90% of tickets sold by bus and other land travel operators were already booked starting Monday.

The Transportation Ministry expected some 85 million people to go on mudik this year, with 23 million cars and 17 million motorcycles hitting the road over the course of the holiday.

Some 8.9 million people, meanwhile, are expected to depart to their hometowns via air travel.

The expected surge in public mobility prompted President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to call on the public last week to make their homebound trips earlier to avoid severe congestion, adding that the government had prepared traffic policies to ensure that travelers could safely go on mudik.

Such policies include odd-even, one-way and contraflow traffic systems, which will be implemented primarily in Java’s key toll roads, as well as the prohibition of trucks, particularly those which carry nonessential goods, from using the toll roads during the Aidilfitri holiday.

Authorities started trials of the odd-even policy, which means that only vehicles with odd-numbered license plates could use the roads on odd dates and vice versa, on the Cikampek toll road on Monday.

The policy will be implemented from 11am to 1pm along certain sections of the toll road on Monday and Tuesday.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday – the last day of the trial period — the odd-even policy will be in place between 10am and 5pm from kilometre 47 of the Cikampek toll road until the Kalikangkung toll gate in Semarang, Central Java. The odd-even policy will complement a one-way policy during the holiday period.

The two policies will be in effect on certain hours – depending on the day – between km 47 of the Cikampek toll road and the Kalikangkung toll gate on April 28-May 1 and May 6-8.

The government has also prepared a number of free mudik options for the less fortunate.

Such a move was aimed at incentivising homebound travelers to use public transportation to reach their destination, which would further ease the traffic during the high mobility period.

While the government has allowed people to go back to their hometowns during this year’s Aidilfitri, it has called on the public to continue to observe health protocols and its travel mandates.

The government has allowed people who have received their booster Covid-19 vaccine, as well as those who are under 18 years old, to go on domestic trips without having to get tested for Covid-19 prior to their trips.

Meanwhile, those who have yet to receive their booster shot are required to present results of rapid antigen or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to the authorities during random spot-checks and travel checkpoints. - Jakarta Post/ANN