Busway versus monorail

from The Jakarta Post:

Several transportation experts, including Rahmah, have predicted a monorail system in Jakarta would not be as effective as the busway. He also questioned whether a monorail would reduce traffic congestion.
Private car users perhaps will not be motivated to use the monorail if the distance of travel is too short (only 14.8 kilometers in the central business district of Kuningan, Sudirman and Senayan; and 12.2 kilometers between Kampung Melayu and Taman Anggrek).
This makes sense, because many Jakarta travelers are commuters who have to travel long distances from suburban areas (Bogor, Bekasi, Tangerang and Depok) to central Jakarta (CBD areas).

On the other hand, data has showed the effectiveness of the busway in Jakarta. According to a Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) survey, 14 percent of busway passengers were previously private car users or passengers. This number is higher than in the city where the busway concept originated, Bogota, Colombia, where only 4.7 percent of busway users were previously private car users (The Jakarta Post, Oct. 5, 2005).

The maintenance costs for the monorail would also be high. If the monorail is introduced in Jakarta, it would cost about $20 million a year to maintain. Meanwhile, the investment and maintenance costs for the busway are much lower.
The completion of the busway project through 2007, consisting of another 14 busway corridors, will only absorb an estimated cost of about $263 million (Pelangi Indonesia, Dec. 4, 2005), which is less than half the calculated cost for the first stage of the monorail project.
Clearly, the busway is more efficient than the monorail for both the short and long terms. In addition, PT Jakarta Monorail has had difficulty finding investors for the monorail.

In terms of capacity, obviously the monorail has an advantage over the busway. Based on Japan's experience, a monorail can be operated as an "intermediate-capacity" transit system. This fits Bouladon's concept of the "transportation gap", which refers to situations where traffic levels are too high for efficient bus operations, but too low to justify full-scale conventional rail lines.

The monorail might be a better alternative for areas of Jakarta where high travel demand cannot be fulfilled by a busway route. The monorail, which has a larger capacity than the busway, should be operated on different routes from the busway, with higher travel demand. For instance, the projected first stage of the monorail would connect several central business districts (Kuningan-Sudirman-Senayan; Kampung Melayu-Taman Anggrek).

If diesel fuel continues to be used for buses, then pollution will remain a problem for the busway. The monorail is pollution-free due to the use of electric power as a source of energy. Therefore, the monorail is more environmentally friendly than the busway, unless the buses in the future run on hydrogen or solar cell systems, which at present is being experimented on by Japan.

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A comparison between the monorail and busway in Jakarta suggests the busway is more suitable than the monorail. The advantages of the busway are that it is less expensive to develop and fares are low. However, the busway has a lower capacity than the monorail and makes traffic jams worse beyond the busway line.
The monorail does not have these limitations, because the monorail has a higher capacity and has its own line above the road, separated from the traffic. The development of a monorail system would be more appropriate in the future, when the government and citizens are better able to pay the high costs.

Perhaps the monorail and busway projects should be planned and implemented as an integrated system. For example, both should serve different routes that have different characteristics of travel demand. Both systems are being introduced as part of Governor Sutiyoso's comprehensive and integrated master plan, which is the basis for the development of an integrated transportation system in Jakarta through 2010. The goal of the plan is to control the operation of private vehicles and motorcycles in the city.