During the period of 2015 -- 2020, Indonesia has achieved significant development of transportation infrastructure including the construction of 3,432 km of new roads; 1,851 km of toll roads; 1,027 km of new train lines; 27 new ports; and 15 new airports that have been operating.
Based on the trends released by World Economic Forum in 2010 -- 2019, the development of a country's GDP per capita is directly proportional to the performance of the country's infrastructure. Indonesia's average position in the competitiveness of transportation infrastructure at the global level is still at the bottom 50% of the total countries assessed. At this point, the infrastructure performance has not been able to support the national logistics performance.
91% of the transport mode share of goods/logistics transportation in Indonesia is dominated by road transportation (trucks), 8.3% followed by sea and air transportation, and 0.7% by rail transportation.
Empty back load is the impact of inequality in supply chain and logistics performance in western and eastern Indonesia. The trade imbalance in the western and eastern regions of Indonesia is caused by limited access at the node and its hinterland side, difficult access to port locations, lack of infrastructure and facilities for loading and unloading goods, as well as stagnant supply of local products for backloading. The sea highway (Tol Laut) has not been able to overcome this problem because it prioritizes the shipping process between nodes which is not followed by improvement in the performance of the node and its hinterland.
Towards a comprehensive national logistics performance, it is necessary to pay attention to progress in the aspects of regulation, IT-enabling, human resources, infrastructure, and sustainability.
The basic problems of logistics transportation are high costs, high travel time, and complicated administration. So, it is necessary to integrate the planning of facilities, operations, functions and standardization. In more detail, the issue of organizing goods transportation in Indonesia can be mentioned, among others:
- Regulations regarding weighbridges that should be related to the public interest are always ignored, there is a tendency of neglecting ODOL (Over Dimension Over Load)
- Local governments also cause costs to increase by issuing various permits and imposing various user fees
- In other countries, regulations regarding levies and illegal permits have been banned, for example in China and the EU
- Thugs exacerbate this situation and increase insecurity in the freight transport sector. Are police very persuasive?
- The application of road levies and payment of various forms of permits is not intended to improve the welfare of the people in general
- Indonesia's topography and poor road quality significantly increase vehicle operating costs for the trucking sector.
- The cost of transporting goods in Indonesia is USD 34 cents/km, higher than the Asian average of USD 22 cents/km
Marine Logistics Infrastructure Issues
As for each mode of transportation, there are still problems with the condition of port infrastructure in Indonesia, for example:
- There is not yet an international hub port, and the low productivity and capacity of existing large ports.
- Low integration of port management infrastructure and services.
Therefore, a sea transportation policy and strategy are needed by:
- Accelerate the development of multimode transportation
- Efforts to balance between nationally oriented transportation with local and regional orientation
- Build an integrated system and network
- Improve transportation safety and security
- Develop environmentally friendly transportation facilities and infrastructure
