PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION by JAZA YUSRON SOLIHIN NIM: 16010132 Phone: 081809736010 2020 words Once upon a time, my aunt

nt went to Bandung with her family. They spent the night at my house, and on the next day, they wanted to travel around Bandung. They didnt k now Bandung very much so they invited me who knew Bandung well to join them, since I had lived in Bandung for about 18 years. When we decided to go around town we were confuse d because we didnt have any vehicles to go on. After several minutes, we decided to go arou nd town with a public transportation called angkot in Bandung. I think everybody can use angkot if they want to go around town, because angkot is a public transportation which cos ts very cheap, has pretty good facilities and is found easily. Angkot is the most popular public transportation in Bandung. If you go to Bandun g you will see angkot very often and it will make you feel like angkot is everywhe re, even in all the areas around the corners of Bandung city. In Bandung there are many kinds of angkot, and each has a different color and different route. It will take a couple of weeks t o remember all the routes of angkot but dont worry; the more often you travel by angkot, the mor e routes of angkot you will remember. The tariff of angkot is paid at the time you get off t he angkot. To get off from angkot you need to say kiri kiri which has the same meaning with pull over in English. Angkot also have their work times, usually from 6 AM to 10 PM, but for some angkot, they work for 24 hours. It depends on what type of angkot; usually angkot which work for 24 hours are Kalapa-Dago, Caheum-Ciroyom, Kalapa-Ledeng, and Kalapa-Aceh. As the most popular public transportation in Bandung, angkot has a lot of advantages. One of them is angkot costs very cheap compared to other public tran sportations. This is what makes angkot popular. So, if you dont have a lot of money, you can t ravel by angkot. It will only cost 1000-3000 rupiahs depending on how far you have travel led. If you just travel for a couple kilometeres you just have to pay 1000 rupiahs and if youve tr avelled very far you can pay with only 3000 rupiahs. Even if youre not lucky, the worst you have t o pay is 4000 rupiahs, it will not be more than that, Im sure. A little tip for you, dont ever p ay the tariff of angkot with high nominal money because many angkot drivers are very stingy. Base d on my experience, once I paid the tariff of angkot which is usually 3000 rupiahs with a single 10000LIFE & SOCIETY 17 rupiah note, and the angkot driver only gave me 5000 rupiahs as change. So once again, I tell you, never pay angkots tariff with high nominal money! Although angkot has a very cheap fare, it doesnt mean that angkot has bad facilit

ies. Compared with the very cheap fare, angkot has pretty good facilities and I think its well worth it. One of the facilities that angkot has is the radio. This radio can play song s from the CDs that the angkot driver has or from one of the radio stations in Bandung that can spoil your ears,. You can request to the angkot driver what radio you want to listen to or you can bring your favorite CD and ask the angkot driver to play it so you will feel as if you are in your own private car. Another facility that angkot can offer is the natural wind or calle d Angin Gelebug in Indonesian. This natural wind does not exist continuously; you can only feel it once the angkot driver drives the angkot at the speed of 80-110 kilometers per hour. Thus , you have to be patient to feel the natural wind of angkot. Another facility that angkot has is the seat in angkot are cushioned. This will make you comfortable. If you sit at the back you will get lower quality seats than at the front because the cushioning at the front is usually t hicker. It depends on your luck to sit at the front because usually the front seat is full, but if youre lucky enough you can. There are still more advantages of angkot. Another one is how there are plenty of angkot iso it can be found almost anywhere, anytime. If you want to go around to wn and you dont have any vehicles to go on, you can use angkot to transport you around town. You dont have to worry about not getting the angkot because another angkot will appear wi thin a few minutes. To get an angkot you just need to stand on the roadside and usually the angkot driver will pull over and offer you a ride. However, sometimes there are angkot drivers who dont want to waste time by offering a ride to the people that are just standing o n the roadside, so sometimes you have to point your finger at the angkot that you want to ride. Although angkot gives a lot of advantages, it doesnt mean that angkot doesnt have any disadvantages. Angkot has a lot of disadvantages too. In fact, there are sev eral people who think angkot should have been prohibited. One of the reasons is that they think angkot is dangerous because angkot usually travels at high speed. Because of this, many pe ople have been the victims of hit and run cases, and many of these are caused by reckless an gkot. Usually, the victims are the people who walk on the sidewalk. Some of them die b ecause of the accident. Angkot that travel with high speed also inflict financial loss and dan ger when they damage the vehicles of other drivers. Many cars are hit by angkot and usually th e angkot drivers dont want to pay the compensation, so they quickly drive the angkot away from the victims. Therefore, the victims can demand neither the compensation nor the char ge. The LIFE & SOCIETY

18 victims of the hit and run cases caused by angkot are not only the other drivers o r the other people that walk on the sidewalk but also the government, Because angkot is the main contributor in increasing the accident rate in Bandung, the government must take the responsibility to decrease the accident rate. Recently the government has instru cted angkot drivers to drive carefully and told to drive their angkot at a maximum speed of 90 kilometers per hour, but this isnt implemented in reality. The angkot drivers still drive th eir angkot at high speeds. They even go at high speed when they want to take over the car in f ront of them at a turn. This is the most dangerous thing that angkot can do because if there is another car at the other end of the road, the accident cant be avoided and it doesnt rule out the possibility of both the angkot drivers and the victims dying. The worst thing is that there are a lot of people in the angkot that can be injured too. Another disadvantage of angkot is that angkot stops anywhere, anytime and it sto ps so unpredictably that it can cause traffic jams everywhere, or even accidents. A ngkot often stop suddenly, even at the do not stop sign, so if you are driving behind an angko t you must keep a decent distance to prevent you from hitting the angkot if the angkot stop s suddenly because the angkot usually doesnt give you a sign when they want to stop. The ang kot drivers only think of themselves and how to get a lot of money, they dont pay attention t o the other drivers so if they meet people who are walking or standing on the sidewalk they will usually stop suddenly beside the people that are walking or standing on the sidewalk and then offer them a ride. Another disadvantage of angkot is the angkot drivers are usually uneducated, eit her intellectually or emotionally. The intellectual part isnt very prominent but the emotional, yes, is very prominent. Angkot drivers can easily get mad if there is something that they dont like. Thats fine, but the problem is many of the angkot drivers dont want to be blamed e ven if they are wrong. For example, from my experience, once my mother was driving and I was sitting next to her. Then my mother quickly pushed the horn and braked when the angkot i n front of us suddenly stopped, even my mother had tried her best to stop our car but it di dnt succeed, the car hit the angkot. Then we got off from the car looking for if there was an y damage in our car. The angkot driver got off from his angkot too and then started to staring a t us and then yelling at us. You can see from my experience that clearly it was the angkot dri vers fault, he stopped his angkot suddenly. I think the angkot driver must be grateful because

my mother didnt have time to push the horn and braked to stop the car. That was from the em otional LIFE & SOCIETY 19 side, now from the intelectual side. Maybe it is rarely seen but sometimes angko t drivers talk impolitely either to their friends or passengers. Another disadvantage of angkot is most angkot drivers ignore road signs such as d o not stop signs just like the above, do not park sign, even the red light. Many an gkot drivers dont want to spend their time stopping at the red light, so they usually pass tro ugh the red light with high speed. Besides endangering other street users, passing trough th e red light can also endanger the passengers who are in the angkot. This traffic violation (brea king trough the red light) can cause traffic jam, accident, or even death. Usually the police of ficers feel too lazy to chase and arrest the angkot drivers who do this because they usually pass thr ough the red light with high speed. Then, when the police officers start to chase and try to arrest them, they are usually out of the officers sight already. This situation doesnt make the angk ot drivers wary, instead, this will only make them feel like they are the king of the publi c road. Another disadvantage of angkot is angkot is often very crowded so you have to si t in the middle of the crowd and it feels very uncomfortable. If youre not lucky enoug h sometimes you must sit at the edge of the seat and it feels very painful to your bottom. A ngkot is usually crowded from 7 AM to 9 PM. This means that angkot is crowded at the time you wan t go to school or workplace. It is also crowded during lunchtime, which means you cant tr avel with angkot to have a lunch without the crowdedness. If you dont want to sit in the mi ddle of the crowd in angkot to find lunch, it is better to bring lunch from house or use you r own vehicle. Another disadvantage of angkot is there are only approximately 8 angkot with different routes and not all regions of Bandung are travelled by the eight route s of Bandungs angkot. So sometimes you have to walk to the main street which angkot travels an d sometimes you cant travel to one place with only one angkots route, you must travel with two or more different angkot to travel to one place and this will cost more fare. Angkot does have a lot of advantages such as its ability to make you travel arou nd town with very cheap fare and it is equipped with pretty good facilities. Howeve r, it also has a lot of disadvantages such as often traveling at high speed so they endanger the other road users and it also often stops suddenly and can cause traffic jam and accident. I think angkot shouldnt be prohibited in Bandung since it gives you many access to travel around Bandung,

but the angkot drivers should drive more carefully and stop their angkot only at the terminal or at the stop area. I think the police should be more assertive in arresting th e angkot driver who does a violation of regulations.