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View all search resultsPricier driving, better livability
If Jakarta wants to break free from its crippling gridlocks, choking air and other perennial issues, it must end the era of cheap parking and force drivers to pay the true cost of the road.
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The setting sun hangs in thick haze above downtown Jakarta on July 20, 2026, as viewed from a shopping mall parking lot in East Jakarta. (JP/Iqro Rinaldi)
J
akarta must make private vehicles less appealing for a whole host of reasons, including smoother travel and better air quality, and raising parking fees is a critical place to start.
The provincial administration’s plan to hike hourly rates by up to twelvefold has drawn predictable pushback from car-dependent commuters. Yet with vehicle volumes swelling, buoyed by electric cars exempt from the odd-even traffic policy, charging drivers significantly more to park is an indispensable step toward curbing car dependency.
The city administration and the Jakarta Legislative Council (DPRD) are currently revising Gubernatorial Regulation No. 31/2017 on parking fees. Under the current decree, the hourly rates are just Rp 2,000 (11 US cents) for motorcycles, Rp 5,000 for passenger cars and Rp 7,000 for buses and trucks; among the cheapest in the world.
To overhaul this system, the Jakarta Transportation Agency has proposed alternative rates of Rp 15,000 for motorcycles and Rp 60,000 ($3.40) for four-wheeled vehicles and larger. These top-tier charges are intended to target major commercial and business districts across the capital, with a separate set of lower tiers for its suburbs.
Given the scale of the city’s gridlocks, the proposal is hardly unreasonable. Statistics Indonesia (BPS) recorded more than 12 million registered vehicles in Jakarta last year, comprising roughly 9.37 million motorcycles and 2.33 million cars.
Across Greater Jakarta (Jabodetabek), the National Police have tallied around 19 million motorcycles and 4 million cars. This sheer volume places an unsustainable strain on a road network that cannot expand indefinitely.
The consequences are felt by every commuter. TomTom’s 2025 Traffic Index ranked Jakarta as the 24th most congested city in the world, logging a 59.8 percent congestion level. Drivers squandered an estimated 125 hours in bottlenecks during rush hour, when they crawled at an average 22.8 kilometers per hour.
