Mr. Budi Karya Sumadi, the Minister of Transportation, has inaugurated the reactivated the Cianjur-Cipatat railroad network in West Java on Monday (Sept 21).  It is a part of the government’s plan to reduce road traffic, especially in Bogor, Padalalang and Suka Bumi and nearby areas.

The Cianjur-Padalarang railroad network is 57 km long and consists of 3 segments. The first segment connecting Cianjur to Ciranjang and was reactivated last year, but the current activation extends the network to the Cipatat district located in the West Bandung Regency.

The Transport Ministry has spent approx US $8 million from its 2019 budget to reactivate the Ciranjang-Cipatat segment, which includes work to repair and straighten the railway. Its goal is to start work on the last segment of the network, which will connect the stations of Cipatat and Padalarang by the year 2022.

On Monday (Sept 21), the transport minister has said in his statement, “Currently, the volume of traffic from Jakarta and its surrounding regions to the southern part of West Java is quite high, and that frequently causes congestion. The reactivation will hopefully improve connectivity for people in Bogor, Sukabumi, Padalarang and the surrounding region.”

Through the reactivation of the railway network, the ministry hopes to reduce the travel time to 2.5 hours between Sipatath and Sukabumi by the train, half an hour less than the average travel time by the road. The ministry also hopes to increase the number of daily train passengers on this route between 2,100 and 6,500.

In addition, the ministry also looking to increase the freight volume of rails from 30 tons per day to 42 tons by adding a sixth car to the freight trains.

Mr. Sumadi has said that the connectivity of this railway is part of efforts to improve the availability of passenger and freight services. It is also hoped that both industrial and commercial participants will switch from using road networks to transportation based on rails.

In order to develop Indonesia’s aging railway infrastructure, the government of President Joko Widodo had planned to build 3,258 kilometers of additional tracks and restore the abandoned network under the 2015-2019 National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN).

However, data from the Ministry of Transport show that the government only built and restored 852 km of tracks between 2015 and 2018, which is far below the RPJMN target.