ABSTRACT

The recovery of Indonesian economy has brought dramatic changes in private transport use. Car sales and notably motorcycle sales has soared into a level even more than before the economic crisis in 1998. The huge increment of those private vehicles indicates inadequate quality of public transport services. With the current bus system, the poor quality of public transport provided by old fleet has produced significant source of air pollutant in the city. Those older vehicles, particularly diesels, produce more emissions than new vehicles. To address those issues, a project has been developed recently by the financial assistance from European Union to define a new public transport form enabling to replace the existing poor and losing patronage services. The plan in this study is to assess and prepare a justification for a good quality and prioritized bus services focusing on the major route in and around city centre. The study also aims at estimating the reduction of vehicle emission resulting from the improvement of the new bus system compared from the existing poor and old fleet operating to compete for passengers. The assessment also includes the possibility to implement exclusive bus lane and raised bus stops operating using buy the service method. Increasing bus priority helps create more efficient bus services and improved, more reliable bus travel times. These provide the platform to increase bus use, reduce car dependency, reduce congestion and improved air quality. In the context of Yogyakarta as tourism city, the improvement of good quality and prioritized bus services will bring a new sense of pride to Yogyakarta as a place to be and to visit and is redefining the image of the city to local people and to the world beyond.