Dili, 22 January 2023.
I like riding public transport bus; I say this because I took
bus in my college student times. Among others, why I like taking bus is because
of social interaction and travel experience. For traveling, I don’t like go by
airplane because I will not see new places along the way. I have done long-haul
bus trips. The first one was from Bandung, West Indonesia to Bali. A google map
shows me 1k KMs distance. The road geometry is not always straight or highway
like. The second one was from Kansas, USA – Saint Louis – Chicago – Iowa – back
to Kansas; I did also several other intermittent bus trips in other cities in the
States. I am more excited sitting on double decker bus. I could observe things
along the way, and much closer.
Unfortunately, we don’t have public transport bus system here
in Timor-Leste. I mean modern bus system. We do have bus services serving Dili
city to municipalities. But they are more like transportation means than convenience
and comfortability. In the year of 2023, the heyday and unstoppable of
innovation and technology in transportation, Dili city, the capital of
Timor-Leste does not even have urban bus system. Commuters are moved by
microlets a kind of mini bus, and private vehicles. I don’t see a good future
for this city if there is no bus system serving as mass transport to move people
together so that their trips don’t harm their very environment and global.
It is good news to hear that Indonesian government and
Timor-Leste government are about to launch a cross border/cross countries bust
service. It is not known when the launch will take place but is seemingly imminent.
As the picture shows, the bus is medium size, around 20-40 seat busses from the
government of Indonesia which will operate between Kupang and Dili. Timor Leste
side is also supposed to do the same. But there is no news yet on the
preparation.
Even though the buses are medium size; I think they have
ideal conditions for convenience and comfortability. I try so say that the
busses are going to be serving with better standards than what we are having
here in Timor-Leste. Those are
airconditioned, scheduled trips, organized ticketing system, and of course have
professional and licensed drivers to drive.
Launch of the bus service will become a great precedence of transport development here in Timor-Leste. As I alluded previously that there is no improved bus system to start with, this initiative would provide a baseline. What I mean baseline is that we can test the initiative to learn from and improve. It is a test for market, and many other aspects. I don’t expect this project to be successful at this stage because I do believe that the firs test must have failures and that is the only way to bring about better public transport services for this country. There must be a start.
*I hope this gives you an inspiration.
