It was launched to the pride of the city governor but not everyone was convinced.

They said the busway was a half-baked idea that ought to have stayed in Bogota, Colombia, the system's birthplace.

Two years have passed, the scorn and suspicion have died down and the red-orange buses have become part of urban life, the chosen ones in peak hours.

In fact, the two new corridors -- which will link Pulogadung in East Jakarta with Harmoni in Central Jakarta, and Harmoni with Kalideres in West Jakarta -- were launched on Sunday to great expectations.

"The new busway corridors are not coming up against the same kind of resistance experienced with the first corridor. In fact, people have been wishing the projects would wrap up much faster," transportation expert Darmaningtyas told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

The director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy Indonesia (ITDP) said people who usually traveled the heavily congested Kalideres-Pulogadung route were particularly looking forward to using the busway as it would slash their travel time from three hours in regular transportation to 80 minutes or less.

Time efficiency was the main reason people gave for going on the busway -- whose ridership increased by 30 percent to 20.8 million passengers in 2005 from 16 million passengers in 2004 -- followed by comfort and safety.

"The busway's strength lies in its reliability and safety, though some people say Patas-ac (air-conditioned, limited-seat) buses are still more comfortable," Darmaningtyas, who is also the director of the Transportation Study Institute (Instran), said.

Time efficiency, comfort and safety are also the reasons why many executives, non-nationals and both foreign and domestic tourists choose to ride the busway.

"It seems the busway has opened up Jakarta to many more people. It's not unusual to see expatriates riding the busway, because it is comfortable and safe, on the other hand only a crazy bule (foreigner) would go on a Metromini," a busway passenger said.

Furthermore, a joint study conducted by Instran and ITDP in December on 300 private vehicle owners showed a high percentage of people -- about 80.2 percent -- were willing to switch to the busway.

The main stumbling block for most people, according to Darmaningtyas, was the feeder buses.

Of the 300 owners surveyed by the non-governmental organizations, 44.8 percent said they were willing to leave their cars at home if busway serviced their area, but 49.4 percent considered the TransJakarta Busway impractical.

"Their main concern is the feeder buses are not as efficient, comfortable, or as safe as the TransJakarta Busway," Darmaningtyas said.

In the meantime, the option of parking their cars near a busway station was an expensive option and not always feasible, he said.

If the city administration can provide integrated feeder buses, and safe and affordable parking spaces near the busway stops, Darmaningtyas said the busway would have more passengers.

"As it is, the integrated ticketing system for both feeder buses and the busway does not work properly. In my experience, after buying the higher-priced tickets, conductors on the feeder buses still demand a fare because they do not recognize the integrated ticket," he said.

The biggest turn-off, Darmaningtyas said, was the government's inconsistent transportation policies, with the construction of eight new toll roads planned for this year.

"Several of the toll roads cross busway routes, such as the planned Rawa Buaya (West Jakarta)-Pulogebang (East Jakarta) toll road. Naturally, this only encourages people to use their own private vehicles, rather then switch to the busway," he said.

Source: Jakarta Post