VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

PT Kereta Api Indonesia (PT KAI), Indonesian major railway operator, launched the Dharmawangsa Train on the Pasar Senen-Surabaya Pasar Turi-Pasar Senen route along with enactment of the 2019 Train Travel Chart (Gapeka) from December 1.

KAI's Managing Director Edi Sukmoro inaugurated the Dharmawangsa Train at Pasar Senen Station in Jakarta on Monday.

The Dharmawangsa train departed from the Pasar Senen Station at 8:25 a.m. local time and will make a stopover at several stations, including Pegadenbaru-Cirebon Prujakan-Brebes-Tegal-Pekalongan-Waleri-Semarang Tawang-Randublatung-Bojonegoro-Babat-Lamongan, and arrive at the final station Surabaya Pasar Turi at 19:30 WIB.

Every one-way train journey would take 11 hours and five minutes, using three executive trains of 150-seat capacity and six 636-seat capacity economy trains.

"The philosophy behind the naming of Dharmawangsa train is since Dharmawangsa was the name of a king of the Medang Kingdom. Such a kingdom, which originated from East Java, was a large undertaking that sent down the great kings on the island of Java. Hence, it is expected that with the launch of the Dharmawangsa rail, PT KAI will, in future, get bigger and better as well as continue to improve services to customers," Sukmoro stated.

In terms of the ticket prices, PT KAI applies the lower and upper limit tariffs. For Pasar Senen-Surabaya Pasar Turi, the price of executive class tickets for weekdays reaches between Rp350 thousand and Rp390 thousand, whereas an economy class ticket is priced at Rp150 thousand.

On weekends, executive class tickets cost between Rp350 thousand and 480 thousand and economy class tickets lie the range of Rp150 thousand to 160 thousand.

Tickets for the Dharmawangsa train can be booked through the KAI Access application, KAI Website, and all other official KAI sales channels.

"The launch of the Dharmawangsa Railway is expected to cater to the train travel requirements of customers looking to head to Central Java and East Java. At the same time, it can increase the public interest in using the train for every trip," Sukmoro explained.

The increasing number of new train departures in the operational area (Daop) 1 of Jakarta is in accordance with the application of the 2019 Train Travel Chart (Gapeka), starting December 1, according to Minister of Transportation Decree Number KP 1781 in 2019 on the Establishment of the 2019 Train Travel Chart PT KAI (Persero).