PEOPLE ON THE STREETS,

PEOPLE ON THE GO

A preliminary research proposal by

Anissa S. Febrina
For the program of Doctor of Philosophy

Jakarta, December 2013

BACKGROUND
Friday, November 8, 2013, 19.30.

It was the start of the weekend. It was raining. And almost 3.5 million commuters in Indonesias
capital Jakarta were stuck in a (minimum) 4-hour traffic congestion to get home. That was not
another record breaking. That was just another horrendous traffic soon forgotten as Jakartans have
no other option. Be it in the comfort of their private cars, on their motorcycles, or in confined buses.
The clock is ticking to that gridlock predicted to come any day in 2014 (Japan International
Cooperation Agency - JICA, 2004). Or will it be sooner than later?

Another Friday, November 22, 2013, 11.00

This was the last working day before a fine of up to US$100 will be strictly imposed to motorists
entering bus-exclusive lanes reserved for Jakartas BRT, a move recently announced by Jakarta
Provincial Government to ensure that its public transportation backbone works to its optimum.
Traffic police were busy guarding several points along the second most crowded BRT corridor.
Motorcyclists were no less preoccupied. Not by struggling to maneuver the traffic outside the bus
lanes, but by helping each other out of the bus lane they so stubbornly entered . Even when
helping each other involve some weightlifting under the scorching heat of Jakartas sun as depicted
below.

Photo 1 Off the bus lane

Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, other Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays

It was either a car driver zig-zagging impatiently from one queuing line to another in front of the
highway toll gate with the false hope of getting ahead faster. Or, three boys barely legal to drive
motorcycles in full speed against traffic flow. Or, a pedestrian refusing to cross the street on the
zebra cross just over 100 meter ahead of her, and choosing instead to take the easy way out of
climbing over a-meter tall concrete fence.

OBJECTIVES
On a very personal level, this research aims at trying to understand what was behind the
frustrated mass that is Jakartas commuter on the streets, on the go. What is on their heads when
they do what they do and what drives them to take the actions they take? Merely frustration of the
snail pace improvement of urban mobility in the metropolis? Getting caught in daily rat-race that
any means (indiscipline) would justify the ends (getting from one point to another)? How far does
the nations psyche of not having a role-model type of leaders for the last four decades translate to
anarchy on the streets?

On the academic front -- since urban mobility has been predominantly driven by technological
innovations, allowing changes to be made: from feet to bicycles, from animal-drawn carriages to
automobiles, this research aims at trying to trace the relationship between (transport) technology
& policy and society. Is it perhaps the case with developing cities -- or rather human in general -the phenomenon of how Jakartans respond to transport interventions by manuevering to get the
easiest, most personally-comfortable way of getting around, disregarding (even personal) safety
aspects.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
A continuation of a previous research done to understand how actors, both human and non-human,
are shaping Jakartas urban transport network (Febrina, 2009) utilizing the science and technology
studies (STS) and actor-network theory (ANT) as analytical framework (mainly Latour 1987, 2005),
this research will try to fill in a recently identified crucial part of the analysis: the people on the
street, the people on the go. In the previous research, the main questions were who and what are
the actors in the shaping the urban transport network in Jakarta; to what extent has technology had
a role in the shaping Jakartas urban transport network and changing interests of the actors
involved; and how do existing public transport modes and actors involved interact with each other
(Febrina, 2009).

Thus, this proposed research will try to answer at least the questions below:
1. In

what

ways

have

attitudes

and

decisions

amongst

the

population

contributed towards the situation we find on the roads of Jakarta today?

2. What

roles

have

the

different

technologies

vehicles,

streets

and

management approaches played in arriving at the current situation?

3. What has been the role of politics and policy in contributing to and in
any way steering matters to their preset condition? Has the chosen transport technology
and policy changed the behavior of urban society? If so, how and in what way?
4. How has the society respond to transport technological and policy interventions? In
respond to that response, do the technological/ policy interventions require adjustments?

RESEARCH POSITIONING
The urban transport sector has always been dubbed one where politics play a larger role than
actual engineering or transport planning. Rarely, it is said that urban transport, as part of the
umbrella of urban mobility is a very social sector. The streets, the train network, the sidewalks, if
you may, could well be seen as a giant social experiment. That said, this research envisions having
to combine understanding of transportation planning, urban politics, sociology, socio-psychology,

as well as human psychology. The latter three aspects were the ones lacking from the previous
research, when in fact it could be crucial in the dismantling and reassembling of the social.

Healey (1977) implied that transport networks are often formed sterile of actual social relationship
analysis and how social actions are taking place on the road, on the transport network is rarely
taken into consideration. What will become of the result of a purely engineering planning interacts
with the dynamics of human being, when in fact a social order is a product of both the rules the
traffic code and the maneuverings of actors within and beyond its constraints. (Conley, 2013)1

Aside from sociology, a very personal analysis at the individual human level is hoped to be able to
help in answering the questions. Were far more likely to develop a good habit when we have cues
to remind us what we should be doing, and when no inconveniences stand in the way, a recent
article on randomized social experimentation argued. 2 Is that how the human brain works? And in
trying to answer the very reactive question of what were they thinking when seeing people
disregard personal safety when moving about in the streets, should then the hypothesis be that
human brain is a poor calculator of probability? That in our minds we think that our chances of not
having collided with another motorist when speeding against traffic flow is minute?

This research aims at bringing all this together and bridging the gap of what needs to be known of
urban mobility transformations in developing cities and what is actually known on the ground to be
able to come up with the most fitting policies.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Following the nature of ANT which puts a heavy emphasis on qualitative study, this research will at
first try to trace how Jakartans end up at this point in terms of behavior in getting around. This
tracing of how things come to be would be done historically, mainly through following the changes
in how people get to one point to another, what changes happened, what policies imposed, what
technology chosen, and how people adjust to those changes in terms of urban mobility. This
involves research of urban transportation development through studies, official transportation and

http://www.people.trentu.ca/~jconley/435/conleytraffic.pdf

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/jpal-randomized-trials/

urban planning policy papers, news articles, visual documentation (photographs). The main
outcome for basis of analysis would be a narrative of how policy and socio-economic changes affect
behavior in urban mobility.

OVERVIEW OF CASE STUDY: JAKARTA

Metropolitan Jakarta is currently among the worlds top ten largest urban agglomerations with a
combined population of 27 million. Its core area, capital city Daerah Khusus Ibukota (DKI) Jakarta
spans over an area of more than 600 square kilometers with a population that differs by day (12
million, (Ministry of Transportation, 2012)) and by night (9.6 million (BPS, 2010)) as commuters
flow in (and out).

Getting into and moving about within Jakarta is a love and hate story with roads as currently
around 98% of trips are done on roads (JUTPI, 2012). Dependence on private cars and motorcycles
is growing as more and more commuting trips are taking place with a limited option of public
transport. As of end of 2012, the numbers of cars and motorcycles in Jakarta have reached around
2.5 million and 9.8 million respectively, with a daily addition of 1,130 new vehicles every day
(Jakarta Vehicle Registration Office, 2012).

REFERENCES
Conley, J. (2013) A Sociology Of Traffic: Driving, Cycling, Walking, forthcoming in Phillip Vannini, ed.,
Technologies
of
Mobility
in
the
Americas

accessed
from
http://www.people.trentu.ca/~jconley/435/conleytraffic.pdf
Febrina, A (2009) Actors and Technology in the Shaping of Urban Transport Network in Jakarta, Indonesia,
Master Thesis Technische Universitaet Berlin, Berlin
GTZ (2005) Sustainable Transport: A Sourcebook for Policy-makers in Developing Cities, Deutsche
Gessellschaft fr Technische Zusammenarbeit GmbH, Eschborn
Healey, P. (1977) The Sociology of Urban Transport Planning in a Socio-political Perspective, Urban Transport
Economics, Cambridge University Press, London
JICA (2012) Jabodetabek Metropolitan Priority Area Strategic Plan, Japan International Cooperation Agency,
Jakarta