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Transport Minister to Anticipate Christmas Surge

 Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi stated he has intensified coordination and divided roles with related stakeholders in anticipating the spike in the number of vehicles and passengers of public transportation during the 2019 Christmas and 2020 New Years holiday season. "We have gathered all stakeholders and divided our roles. The Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing will prepare the roads, the Police force prepares their own team and we will do our part as well. Insya Allah (God willing), this will go on smoothly," said the Minister in his statement received In Jakarta, Monday. The Minister said that the Police Force's Traffic unit will coordinate down on the streets, much like the Eid holiday season. He predicted that during the Christmas and New Year period, the spike of vehicle numbers would not be as significant as the Eid holidays, and that the crowd would be more concentrated in tourism destination areas. "The prediction is that during the New Year holidays, it would not be as packed as Eid, so usually there would be a lot of people in tourist attractions. People would want to go to Bali, Jogja, more than those returning home. So we have taken certain measures in some places to ensure security," he said. In addition, he also said there will be appropriation of passenger ship fees around 10-15 percent. "Theoretically, the increase should have been at 50 percent, but the government is doing it gradually. We stay at 10-15 percent in order to help them (operators) maintain good services," he said. He further said that at the moment, there are a number of operators that is looking to stop operating as the could not cover the fees.//ANTARA