Bandung Review : Our Voyage with Trans Metro Bandung (BETA VERSION)

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Our Voyage with Trans Metro Bandung

As a tourism city, Bandung provides tons of public transportation. One of the latest is is Trans Metro Bandung (TMB) which started running since 24th of September, 2009. Bandung Review went on a journey with TMB yesterday and here is what we have for you to tell.

Since its first launch until now, TMB only serves Elang-Cibiru route. Along the route, which lies across Soekarno-Hatta Street, there are seven bus-stops, usually called as shelter. For those of you who already ride the Trans Jakarta (busway), you might watch the TMB shelter here is not as fancy as the busway’s shelter. The TMB shelter only provides a bench under a simple tent, often overloaded with lots of awaited passengers. There is also two officers standing here and selling the tickets. We only spend three thousand Rupiahs for a one-way ticket from Elang to Cibiru.

“We cannot predict the arrival of the bus. Too bad that the government hasn’t built a special line for TMB, because the buses are often struggling to face traffic jams in some point,” said the ticketing officer.

Around 1.30 PM, the bus that we waited finally came and we rode the bus along with the other passengers. We found inside that the bus was not too big (Indonesian people refer the bus as three-quarter bus). It has 17 seats and 36 holders for standing passengers. We buckle our self up as the bus hit the road and finally, our journey began.

We strolled across the longest road in Bandung, the 30-km Soekarno Hatta Street. It is considered the widest road in Bandung, therefore TMB is expected to go by it easily. We noticed there are some differences along the areas that we crossed. From Holis to Kiara Condong junction, modern buildings, mainly industrial and business offices, were dominating the side of the road. While since Margahayu area, our sightings became “greener” as the crop fields started to appear in front of us.

Eventhough there are only ten TMB buses with one route available for this time, Bandung people already show their great enthusiasm over it. We do hope that Bandung authorities will increase the units or even add another route for TMB. So, TMB could be a bright light to overcome the transportation problems here in our beloved city. (FA/IF)

Indonesian Version