The project carried out under the South East Asia Urban Environment Management Application (SEAUEMA) Project, in cooperation between Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) Bangkok and Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
The Jakarta Municipal Bylaw on Air Pollution Control 2005 mandates on a Car Free Day to be implemented once a month in different locations in to improve urban air quality in assigned location. The bylaw is a novelty in urban management policy scheme and is met with both positive and negative response. The project reviewed the implementation of this policy.
Through interviews and multi-stakeholder discussions, it was revealed that organizing Car Free Day could be much improved. First, the organizers must evaluate its traffic re-assignment plan more thoroughly to reduce adverse impact. Second, since success of such initiatives relies heavily on overall reduced motorized travel, supplementary measures must be enforced. This could take the form of better-communicated events and increase activities that can be organized with pedestrian and cyclist. Also, it has been revealed that Car Free Day has created a much-needed functioning public space; therefore frequency of should be upgraded to once a week, instead of once a month. Third, communication strategy should focus on positive anticipation towards the event, and not warning the public of a road closure, which perpetrate negative anticipation. And last, this monitoring and evaluation should be repeated continuously to track progress, with improved traffic counting and air quality monitoring methods.
The project also noted that the Car Free Day as a standalone policy would not do much to improve urban air quality in Jakarta. Car Free Day can be most effective in introducing and educating the public of a more sustainable travel behavior that is using public transport (BRT TransJakarta) and zero-emission bicycle and walking. On the other end, related structural policies such as fuel policy (quality standard and pricing), vehicle policy (fuel economy standard and population limit), and urban transport policy, must be concertedly planned and implemented.
