Spending almost Rp 50,000 (US$3.84) a day for a round trip from her home in Dadap to her campus in Gading Serpong, both in Tangerang, she considers the cost to be already too high, especially given what she considers to be the poor quality of the roads.

“At one point on the toll road, it gets bumpy like riding a horse as there are too many uneven road surfaces,” said the final-year student of Multimedia Nusantara University.

So it came as bad news to her, and indeed many commuters around the Greater Jakarta area, that tolls on the Sedyatmo toll road are slated to increase by 7 to 16 percent, starting at midnight on Thursday.

Following suit in the near future is a toll increase for the busy Jakarta-Cikampek toll road, which connects the capital city and Bekasi and Karawang, both in West Java, which, like the Sedyatmo toll road, is also operated by state-owned Jasa Marga.

The planned toll increases for two of Greater Jakarta’s major routes come despite user complaints about the road quality of thoroughfares in the capital city, which is hub to many economic activities.

“We’ll add the extra from the toll increases to our capital expenditure, especially for road maintenance. So, it will eventually benefit the public,” Jasa Marga finance director Anggiasari Hindratmo said.

For the Sedyatmo road, the toll for class I vehicles, including sedans and minivans, will rise to Rp 7,000 from Rp 6,000.

The toll is also adjusted upward across the board for class II vehicles to Rp 8,500 from Rp 7,500, for class III vehicles to Rp 10,000 from Rp 9,500, for class IV vehicles to Rp 12,500 from Rp 11,500 and for class V vehicles to Rp 15,000 from Rp 14,000.

While the Sedyatmo toll increase has been approved by the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry, the planned toll increase for the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road is still being assessed as the road quality may render it unfit for a price hike.

The ministry’s Toll Road Regulatory Agency (BPJT) head Herry Trisaputra Zuna said the Sedyatmo toll road had passed the minimum service standards (SPM), which include the ability to maintain road quality, accessible toll gates and regular patrols, to name a few prerequisites.

“The Jakarta-Cikampek toll road has to be rid of uneven road surfaces and potholes. Also, we still can’t overcome the overloading problem on that road,” he added.

Jasa Marga spokesperson Dwimawan Heru argued that based on the Ministerial Decree No. 507/2015, toll increases for Sedyatmo and Jakarta-Cikampek were part of an adjustment for inflation within the past two years.

“The tolls for those two roads will be increased in line with the inflation rate,” Heru said, citing data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) showing 9.79 percent inflation in the past two years in Jakarta and 8.13 percent in Bekasi.

“The government is still looking deep into our proposal for the Jakarta-Cikampek road. We hope it can be approved as soon as possible,” he added.

However, Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) chairman Tulus Abadi called on the BPJT to publish the SPM audit results so that the public could openly assess the quality of the toll road by themselves.

“Is it true that all of the service standards have been met by the operator? Only God knows,” he said. “It’s unfair because the public needs to know.”

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