Construction of a high-speed train line allowing travel between Jakarta and Bandung at speeds of up to 350 kilometres per hour has started. The USD 5.6 billion project is a key component of a long-overdue programme to upgrade decrepit infrastructure being spurred by Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Indonesia lacks a mass-transport system, forcing its increasingly affluent 250 million people to rely heavily on private transport, resulting in grinding traffic in the biggest cities.
Mr Joko said he hoped the high-speed railway would spur demand for future public transport alternatives in other parts of Indonesia, as well as speed up the movement of people and goods between cities, helping economic growth.
The contract was awarded to China after a fierce bidding war with Japan. China has emerged as a global leader in rail transport technology and now sports the world’s largest high-speed rail network. It also supplies trains to the Philippines and, most recently, is providing rolling stock as part of an effort to upgrade Manila’s dysfunctional Metro Rail Transit (MRT) network.
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The MRT as well as other modern transport facilities in Metro Manila have seen their service levels suffer as a result of neglect and mismanagement under the government of President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III and, specifically, during the watches of successive Department of Transportation and Communications Secretaries Mar Roxas and Jun Abaya.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Proud to be Pinoy!
The Bullet Train works thru : Magnetic Levitation. It is a modern transport system. Japan, China and French have it.
The Philippines cannot even maintain its LRT; even with Aquino and Abaya, promising to be run over by the obsolete LRT, if they cannot expand it. “Mga Sinungaling”…
It’s no use talking about the Magnetic Levitation Bullet Train. This will never happen in the Philippines. Never, in the next century. Never, even when Pigs will fly…
The MRT as well as other modern transport facilities in Metro Manila have seen their service levels suffer as a result of neglect and mismanagement under the government of President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III and, specifically, during the watches of successive Department of Transportation and Communications Secretaries Mar Roxas and Jun Abaya.
Dysfunctional LRT and MRT and PNR trains tap into some deep Failipino collective memory.
Maybe its about time Manny V. Pangilinan runs for President. We’d be better off owned by the Salims of Indonesia rather than another batch of “presidentiables” who like putting their friends in important positions.
Having seen the total and final collapse of both the ‘Philippine National Rail Road’ and ‘Panay Railway’ companies, and seeing now the slow-motion demise of the once promising MRT/LRT tandem; can we honestly foresee a ‘MagLev’ mass-transport system at any time in the country’s future? I think not. The clincher.. the final nail to the coffin of any development plans towards improving our mass transit system are the militant, mutinous and anarchic ‘Jeepney and Bus Drivers and Owners associations. This sector constitutes a potent voting bloc, much like the ‘Iglesia Ni Cristo’cult, which our political ‘leaders'(?) always indulge and oblige.
Thinking things over, I am certain that the real ‘final nail’.. “the straw that will break the camel’s back”, is actually the anemic, spineless and clueless crop of presidential candidates.
Question, let us tell the truth, now. 1. This train was never funded for by the government and the bidding process was corruption at its best level. This is why the train is still being tied up in a political fire storm. 2. Japan is the leader in bullet train technology. This is why the USA and many European countries only use Japan. Also China is know for using cheap parts and cheap lines that cause accidents where people die. 3. The tickets for using this train is expecting to cost twice as much of a airline ticket from the same destinations. 4. Maybe we should expand our work on knowledge of getting Philippines to make its own system using the same STEM OFW’s that go overseas to work for the same bullet train makers. The Philippines could probably do something better and more reliable than China.