Merak Port is confirmed to be ready to face the 2024 Eid homecoming flow,

JAKARTA – Minister of Transportation (Menhub) Budi Karya Sumadi together with the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK) Muhadjir Effendy on Saturday (23/3) visited Merak Harbor, Banten. Through this visit, the two ministers wanted to ensure the readiness of the Merak-Bakauheni Pass in dealing with community movements during the homecoming and return flows for Eid.

From this visit, Coordinating Minister Muhadjir ensured that the ratio between volume and vehicle capacity (Volume/Capacity ratio or V/C ratio) could be maintained below the 0.7 scale in the Merak Port area. Even though it is predicted that there will be an increase in passengers and vehicles in this Eid transport, the V/C ratio in the Merak, Ciwandan and BBJ areas is estimated to remain at 0.56, the same as last year.

V/C ratio is the ratio of vehicle volume to capacity. If the V/C ratio value has reached a value of 0.8 or greater, it can be categorized as vehicle flow approaching capacity, so management and traffic engineering measures need to be taken.

“To ensure that the minimum V/C ratio can be like last year, namely 0.56. It would be better if it could be reduced,” said the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture in a written statement, quoted on Sunday (24/3/2024).

Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi added that the government had prepared steps to anticipate the increase in the number of homecoming travelers on the Merak-Bakauheni route. “As is known, the number of homecoming travelers is predicted to increase 50% from last year to 193.6 million movements. We need to anticipate this with various thorough preparations. Today we have held a coordination meeting regarding Eid transportation,” he explained.

Related to this, a number of developments have been carried out to improve Eid transport services this year, including the addition of ports. Previously, the ports operating during Angleb 2023 were Merak Port, Ciwandan Port, and Bandar Bakau Jaya (BBJ) Bojonegara Port. This year there is an additional Indah Kiat Port which will function as an additional loading location if there is a diversion from BBJ Port as well as additional vehicle capacity at Merak Port. Indah Kiat Harbor can accommodate around 500 small vehicles.

Apart from that, the capacity of Pier 2 of Merak Port has also been increased to 10,000 GT (Gross Tonnage), from previously only 3,000 GT in the 2023 Angleb period. Meanwhile, Ciwandan Port will focus on serving the Ciwandan-Bakauheni route.

“What I specifically ordered to ASDP and Pelindo is that large ships with higher speeds should be prioritized so that more and faster transportation will be carried out,” said the Minister of Transportation.

The total number of ships that will operate on Angleb this year is 81 operating ships. On the Merak-Bakauheni route there are 66 operating vessels, namely 6 express vessels. There were 10 ships on the Ciwandan – Bakauheni route and 5 ships on the BBJ – Muara Pilu route.

In Angleb 2024, port capacity will increase by 5% from a total of 10,688 small vehicles last year to 11,188 small vehicles this year. Meanwhile, ship capacity increased 2% from the previous 36,323 vehicles to 37,159 vehicles.

Also present at this activity were the National Police’s Traffic Corps Head Aan Suhanan, Acting Governor of Banten Al Muktabar, Director General of Land Transportation Hendro Sugiatno, Director General of Sea Transportation Antoni Arif Priadi, Main Director of Pelindo Arif Suhartono, Main Director of Jasa Raharja Rivan Purwantono and Director of Commercial and Services ASDP Yusuf Hadi.

(fjo)