This is possibly one of the most comprehensive and essential entries that I will be writing about Jakarta - the local transportation system. Having tried almost every imaginable form of transportation on the streets, this entry accumulates 4 months of experience on the streets here, with the exception of the “river-taxi”, (extremely rare).

If you have come to Jakarta before you will know that: the city is really big. the traffic is really bad and public transportation is really awful. As the entry is massive (cumulating all my experiences of the local transportation system here), this section of the blog will be somewhat of a mini-series of entries, a 14-part miniseries.

• Part 01 of 14 - The TransJakarta Busway
• Part 02 of 14 - Long-Haul buses (Bis)
• Part 03 of 14 - Long-Haul Buses (Private)
• Part 04 of 14 - Short-Route buses (Metromini/Kopaja)
• Part 05 of 14 - Mikrolet/Angkot
• Part 06 of 14 - Bajaj
• Part 07 of 14 - Bemo
• Part 08 of 14 - Train (Kereta Api)
• Part 09 of 14 - Becak
• Part 10 of 14 - Car (Mobil)
• Part 11 of 14 - Taksi
• Part 12 of 14 - Ojek
• Part 13 of 14 - Delman (Horse Carriage)
• Part 14 of 14 - On foot

Current public transportation in Jakarta consists of various types of buses, starting from the very small bemo and pickup sized mikrolet, to slightly larger minbuses and full sized city buses. There are also both two and four wheeled taxis. Other current transport systems or “Angkot” – angkutan Kota (city transportation) include the TransJakarta bus rapid transit system and the Jabodetabek Commuter Railway.

In a short summary, simply because there is absolutely no system or regulation except for the TransJakarta busway route, the only “government-supported” internal transportation system. Whilst the transportation is neither consistent nor constant, they are reliable, provided you know exactly what to take and where to take to, (or at least have a fairly good idea), chances are you will definitely get there.
The city layout is chaotic and totally bewildering, traffic is undisputedly one of the worst in South-East Asia with massive traffic jams (macet "MAH-chet") slowing the city to a crawl during rush hours in the day and at night. The traffic lights are not reactive to traffic conditions and are primitive (only based on timers) and even then many drivers do not adhere to traffic rules whatsoever, you will see indiscriminate U-turns, cutting of lanes, abrupt stops in the centre of roads and jaywalking pedestrians absolutely everywhere as there are little to none pedestrian routes on the roads, Zebra-crossings have long ago faded to the colour of the road and nobody adheres to allocated cross-roads.

For a city of 10 million, there is no MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) rail system at all. The only trains are the intra/inter-city railway lines, and the current railway system is inadequate to say the least. The construction of a monorail system, started in 2004, soon ground to a halt over politics and only remaining government-supported transit system is the slowly expanding Transjakarta Busway which I will describe more in the subsequent sections.

You will not find much useful information on the net, either a bewildering static jpeg map http://www.transjakarta.co.id/ and no information for the “traditional” Angkots on the streets at all. Locals on the go by experience or simply ask another local on how to go, most people usually do not know anymore than the places and locations that they have either been to or frequent.

The maps on the streets have not been updated for years and are long out-dated, and there is literally no information on the routes that the Angkots ply except for the signs that they have on their windshields. Except for TransJakarta with a local company having written an iphone app, there really isn’t much information you can get for Angkots except to travel on them to gain the experience on their routes, (which can change depending on the drivers digression, more about this later).

Getting around Jakarta is technically not a problem with the variety of transportation options available, BUT to get around effectively, you need a few prerequisites – being relatively conversant in Bahasa Indonesia, a relatively good sense of street direction is essential as well as carry lots of small change and a little bit of tolerance on the roads.

Various areas of the city have different levels of chaos. The most well organized traffic is only at Golden Triangle (MH Thamrin, Jendral Sudirman, and H.R.Rasuna Said.) Recently, new housing complexes also have good traffic, with police and Satpams working together to police and regulate the roads.

You will see vendors on the street, peddling all sorts of wares, beggars, buskers, little children. It's a pitiful sight that steels you and sometimes desensitizes you over the months and years.