E-Toll: why is it rather slow?

In the last 1 week, I drive to office via city toll road. I drive from Jatiasih (Jakarta Outer Ring Road), pass small part of Jagorawi toll, and get in to the Jakarta Inner City Toll road. Starting 19 of October, there is an interesting thing happening at Cililitan Ramp. There are two special toll payment gates that are using E-Toll Card. They are suppose to be an automatic gate. User use the E-toll card by putting the card close to the reader, get the print out receipt and drive into the toll road. People using that gates should at least get out of the gate faster than the normal cash payment gates. However, as far as I observe, the gate is even slower than the normal cash payment gate. Once I counted 14 seconds to finish one transaction at the e-toll gate. the standard time for cash transaction is 10 seconds (or maybe faster). this has caused delays and longer queue in the gate. the e-toll gate should be a faster option of the ramp, but i failed so far.

What have caused that sluggishness? There are at least two options that eventually lead to the technology. E-toll card uses different type of machine to read it. It is not like credit card or debit card that use swipe machine. E-toll card only needs to be "in touch" with the reader. The process should take very short time (2-3 seconds) and the transaction is done. It is true that after the transaction (payment and money is deducted) the gate is opening, but usually the car stays there maybe to get the printout of the receipt. The gap of the system might be in the printing stage. The whole system is actually quite complicated. It has to integrate car identification system (whether it is a small passenger car, bus, or trucks) and payment system. So far the installed one only handles small passenger car (type 1), so the complication is reduced. The system should work faster because it is not (yet) very complicated. The system integrator or designer has failed to provide fast reliable automatic gate system.

The second reason why the e-toll gate is so slow is because of its potential to replace manual gate operators. Can you imagine how many people will have to leave the job if the automation works fine? I do not know. Maybe hundreds of people directly in the job and thousands of people depending on them will be affected. Using this automatic gate will surely cut jobs and create unemployment.

The second reason might not have very strong technical relation to the slowness of automatic toll gate, but the potential condition can make certain people do something or more things strange, like tempering the machine so that it does not work properly. I hope, my second guess is not happening and the reason for slowness is purely technical reason.

Anyway, I am still waiting for better public transport so that I do not have to drive 60-70 kilometers per day. Bike? Let’s see. I am rather old to do it.

New Electricity Bill - Is It Better?

New bill just passed by house of representative yesterday (8/9/09). The new bill is regulating electricity sector. If the president does not sign it, then the bill will not be implemented.

The main feature of this new bill is that regions are given freedom to have their own electricity utility. This is true mainly for areas not in PLN's (Indonesia's Utility) service area. As far as I observed, this bill is just another way for the government to escape from the obligation. Government has to provide energy for the underprivileged communities/areas as mandated in the Energy Bill (30/2007). Since regional governments are basically/usually have little knowledge on the sector and low financial capacity to provide electricity to remote areas or underprivileged areas (that usually are not in the PLN's service area) then there will be no electrification for underprivileged areas. There is no incentive for private sector to get in since providing electricity to remote area means a loss. And if there are areas that are interesting enough for private sector (with local government) to establish a local utility, then the tariff might be very high and eventually gives hard time for economic development. The new bill will not achieve anything except more confusion and chaos. If the president is dare enough, he will not sign the bill.

What we need now is energy conservation and stronger law enforcement on this matter. Better rational use of energy and not wasting rare resources.

GOOD & BAD of Mini Hydro Power

ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) through one of its programmes, ASEAN-German Mini Hydro Project (AGMHP), has just soft released their new publication. The new publication is a two volumes picture book containing good and bad practices in developing micro hydro power scheme, especially for rural electrification. The picture book is not yet officially launched, therefore in their website (http://agmhp.aseanenergy.org) only some samples are provided. The samples look promising. There are two chapters uploaded. Full version of the book can be downloaded as soon as the book is officially launched. There might be possibility to directly request the book to AGMHP (maybe at small cost).

I, fortunately, just got the two volumes at hand. They are fantastic. You can expect common failures in developing micro hydro shown in the book (note: cases are mostly coming from Indonesia experience). The book can suddenly make you an expert of micro hydro, and that is the real danger of this book. This book is actually informational in nature. It is not intended by the writer and by AGMHP that as soon as somebody reads the book he/she can become an expert. An expert needs proper education and also long and various field experiences.

This case reminds of a university teacher I met some months ago in a focused group discussion. This guy (he comes from reputable institute in Bandung) said that he already made more than 100 feasibility studies of micro hydro without even visiting the sites. He relies of Google Earth!! That's shocking. Every micro hydro has its own characteristics and one can only see and find it out when one is at the site taking measurements and samples. Google Earth does help, but one cannot rely on it to make a proper justifiable micro hydro feasibility study.

This GOOD&BAD book does not make someone an expert of micro hydro. He or she might later on able to criticize mistakes, but to give solution might be no, unless he/she gets proper education on the specific issue. Anyway, this book is worth to bring along during your visits to micro hydro sites. You can visit the download section of AGMHP website to find out the recent update.

Redefinition of Sustainable

Information technology (electronic, automation, robots, software etc.) has revolutionized the way we live. It is somehow making our lives easier and more convenient, but on the other side it is also slowly destroying our social fundamentals. If we are not careful, the days of the “terminators” are coming and human has to survive in the machine driven world.

Today, 3rd of August 2009, my wife’s company (one of big companies of the US) is going to lay off some staffs. The company does not do lay off due to economic downturn but due to significant change in the “system”. The company sells the product very good in Indonesia. The reason of of the lay offs is just that the company has just used the big software and automated administration system. The new system, although might costly, but reduce human involvement in the administration system. In the long term it reduces a lot of costs and unnecessary problems (very logical !! just like IT use plain logic). The IT has just started ruining some families’ life.

IT is not fair. IT only serves to capitalism. IT supports greed and destroys humanity. A human is at its high value if he/she works and creates and be helpful and be useful for others. IT simplified those important values (as process) for the sake of bigger profit for capital owners. Social fundamentals are destroyed by IT.

I support companies that respect social values and reflecting it in the form of work creation and big employment. It is time to reshape the definition of “sustainable” companies or “green” companies. They should not just focus on the physical environment but also most importantly “social” environment and social values. Socially green company should have direct impact to more people than “environmentally green” electronically automated company. We should buy products from “socially green” company….

Support local products!! Support Indonesian products!!!