PUPR Ministry to Assess Rest Area’s Design Following Congestion during Mudik 2019

Based on an evaluation of mudik (annual exodus ahead of Eid Day) and reverse exodus during this year’s Eid, Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) intends to redesign parking lot at rest areas. The effort is made to facilitate travelers who want to take a rest on their ways from or to their hometown during Eid holiday.

“We will evaluate the design of the parking lot to be centralized in a rest area. Travellers normally parked their cars near restrooms resulting in significant area packed with vehicles. Therefore, we want to design the location of parking lot far from stores that will make it more organized,” Minister of Public Works and Public Housing Basuki Hadimuljono said in Jakarta, Wednesday (12/6).

In addition, the Ministry will also evaluate rest areas for intercity toll roads located really close to the hard shoulder that leads to traffic congestion.

“We think the location should be quite far from the hard shoulder, particularly for intercity toll roads in which land acquisition process still can be done,” Basuki stated.

Regarding that matter, Ministry of Transportation has expressed intention to make rest areas that will function as a “toll terminal”, which highlighted the need to create special design to ease the congestion.

“No matter how many rest areas are, they cannot accomodate all travellers if we do not change the design. For example, rest areas in Palimanan and Kalikangkung can accomodate 17,000 vehicles in a normal condition, but in fact, the rest areas accomodated 68,000 vehicles during mudik,” the Minister said.

One-way policy that allowed travellers to enter rest areas from two ways still had not managed to accomodate all travellers who intended to enter the rest areas.

Regarding evaluation on the roads before and after Eid 2019, Basuki said that there are more vehicles on the roads during the reverse exodus since there are only two to three days to return to Jakarta, while before Eid the travellers have 4 to 5 days to perform mudik. Therefore, most of travellers returned to Jakarta at the same time. To ease the traffic congestion, the Government has implemented one-way policy during mudik period and reverse exodus.

In the meantime, one-way system which was implemented from Jakarta has brought positive impacts to small vendors and souvenir shops along national roads since travellers heading to the west from the east must use national roads,” Basuki said. (PUPR Ministry/ES)

Translated by : Rany Anjany Subachrum
Edited by : Muhardi/ Mia Medyana Bonaedy