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I took public transportation for granted when I lived in the United States, where I spent around seven years from high school through my early working years. I lived in the state of Maryland and regularly commuted into neighboring Washington, DC, but the journey was never something I had to think much about.
The bus stop connecting me to the Metro station was a two-minute walk from my house, and the bus ride to the station took about seven minutes. From there, I could get into downtown Washington in around 30 to 40 minutes, and once I arrived, most of the places I needed to go were only a three- to five-minute walk from a station. The commute felt predictable, too. I didn't have to worry about being late because buses and trains were usually reliable.
This, to me, was how public transportation was supposed to work. I never learned to drive because I never felt like I needed to.
When I moved back to Jakarta last year, I was surprised to see how much the capital had expanded its public transportation options. The MRT and LRT were now available, familiar modes of public transport from my years abroad.
So I assumed, naively, that commuting would similarly be easy.
I live in Cibubur, on the Depok side of the border, and the closest public transport option for me to get to Jakarta is the LRT. The nearest station was just 3.4 kilometers from my house, closer than the Metro station had been from my home in Maryland, but getting there has proved harder. I have to rely on a ride-hailing service or ask someone to drive me to the LRT station, because there is no feeder bus service available and walking isn’t an option because of broken sidewalks and the lack of a continuous pedestrian route.
After arriving at the station, I take the LRT to Dukuh Atas station, which connects to several public transport options, including the MRT line that takes me to my destination in Blok M. I expected the connection to be seamless, remembering the times I had transferred between train lines back in DC, where I would usually stay within the same station, walk to the other side of the platform or go up a few stairs to reach the connecting line.
Instead, getting from the LRT to the MRT meant a long walk, several flights of stairs and even passing through the KRL station just to tap my card. Don't get me wrong, I love walking, but I couldn't help wondering why the transfer had to be so complicated.
I started to wonder whether Jakarta's public transport had grown in reach without growing in reachability, especially for the millions of commuters coming in daily from satellite cities like Depok, Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi. The capital now has more train lines and more stations, but that expansion hasn't translated into the same level of connectivity across its borders.
The last-mile problem
Was it just me?
Alya, 24, recently started working in Jakarta. She also lives in Cibubur, with the nearest KRL station in Depok. To get there, she takes an ojek (motorcycle taxi), a 30- to 40-minute trip that costs around Rp 30,000, depending on the time of day. She then spends another 40 minutes on the train.
But her journey doesn’t end when she gets off the train. The station is still too far from her workplace to walk, so she has to order another ojek, adding another 15 minutes to her commute.
The numbers suggest Alya's experience is hardly unusual. As of 2023, 54.7% of Jabodetabek households lived more than a kilometer from the nearest mass transit stop.
For some workers, this routine lasts for years.
Ananta, 64, a former state-owned enterprise (BUMN) employee, has commuted from Depok to his office in Jakarta for more than a decade. To ensure he arrives at the office on time, he leaves home right after the Fajr prayer, at around 4 a.m.
Depending on the day, he takes a bus or uses an ojek to reach Depok Station, the nearest KRL station to his home. From there, he takes the KRL to Cikini Station, a journey that takes around 45 minutes, before walking another 15 minutes to his office in Thamrin.
Despite the transport infrastructure improvements in Jakarta, his commuting experience hasn’t changed. The problem, he says, is that most business districts are located in Jakarta, while housing in the capital remains unaffordable for many workers.
These commuters are not a marginal group at the edge of Jakarta's transport system. Jabodetabek records more than 4.4 million commuter movements each day, with around 1.5 million involving commuters from Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi to Jakarta. If so many people do this commute every day, why does getting from the surrounding areas into Jakarta remain so difficult?
Integrating Greater Jakarta
According to Djoko Setijowarno, a civil engineering academic at Soegijapranata Catholic University and adviser to the Indonesian Transport Society (MTI), the problem is rooted in how transport is governed and planned across Jakarta and its surrounding areas, which are not always planned as part of one connected transport system.
“Infrastructure gaps and poor integration between transport modes are downstream symptoms of that deeper failure,” he says.
To be fair, Jakarta has taken steps to improve transport integration. Dukuh Atas, for example, connects the MRT, KRL, LRT and the airport rail link, while JakLingko provides unified ticketing across multiple modes. The city has also committed to building 200 kilometers of new rail lines and adding feeder services, part of what officials call a shift from car-oriented to transit-oriented development.
Yet coverage of Jakarta’s satellite cities remains limited. Transportation expert Djoko Setijowarno told The Jakarta Post recently that Jakarta’s public transportation network now covers up to 92.5 percent of the capital, but less than 10 percent of housing developments across Greater Jakarta have any access to public transportation at all.
While Transjabodetabek, a bus service connecting Jakarta with surrounding areas, now operates 18 routes into areas outside Jakarta, the system is still managed by different governments and institutions. In Tangerang, for example, existing transport operators face funding constraints, while routes, bus stops and services are managed by different levels of government.
The result can be overlapping services, bus stops that don't match passenger needs and different service standards between regions, making cross-regional journeys less seamless.
Not just more trains and buses
Professor Mohammed Ali Berawi, director of the Center for Sustainable Infrastructure Development (CSID) at Universitas Indonesia, argues that the solution isn't simply to build more transport infrastructure.
Greater Jakarta needs better integration between transport modes, urban planning that brings homes and jobs closer together and policies that prioritize reducing travel times instead of expanding capacity.
When I ask what the capital could learn from cities with more integrated transport systems, Berawi points out Tokyo, where “an advanced rail network works because it is paired with land-use planning that clusters offices, housing and mixed-use development around transit corridors, reducing how far people need to travel in the first place”.
That sounds a lot like what I experienced in Washington, DC.
I've experienced what seamless integration looks like, and it starts before you even reach the station. It means having better sidewalks, proper bus stops and safer, more walkable routes to public transport.
Imagine not having to order an ojek or take an angkot just to get to the station because you can simply walk there. For me, that is what better integration should look like: public transport that is accessible from your doorstep.
Greater Jakarta doesn't just need more trains to make public transportation better. It needs to make sure trains are easy to reach. If the journey to the station still requires an ojek, a car or a dangerous walk along a broken sidewalk, then the system is only as accessible as its weakest link.
More trains and more stations may expand the network, but true integration means making sure people can actually get to them.
