Transportation Ministry Prepares Port Hierarchy

Transportation Ministry Prepares Port Hierarchy

JAKARTA – Transportation Ministry is arranging ferriage port hierarchy to split authority and responsibility of port management to improve public service.

Land Transportation Acting Director General, Sugiharjo, said hierarchy arrangement process is on focus group discussion (FGD) phase conducted by consultants and involving Transportation Ministry and Provincial Transportation Department. “Hierarchy arrangement is mandated by Law No. 17/2008 about Shipping and Governmental Regulation (PP) No. 61/2009 about Port,” he said on Friday (1/2).

He continued the implementation of hierarchy, as well as port function and role are needed to implement proper port ferriage implementation procedure. The arrangement, he said, is initiated by identifying ferriage port distribution to optimize the integrated planning and operation.

In the arrangement of ferriage port hierarchy, he explained, there are some principal issues which have to be solved namely the arrangement referring to port hierarchy comprising main, feeder and collecting ports or referring to road and train networks hierarchy. “Ferriage transportation legal basis is Article 22 of Law No. 17/2008 stating that ferriage is the transportation functioning as a bridge connecting road networks separated by waters to transport passengers, vehicles, and commodities,” he added.

In the operational regulation which is PP No. 61/2009, port is the port which can be used to serve maritime transportation and/or ferriage transportation located at rivers and/or seas. “So the issue is that ferriage port hierarchy arrangement refers to road hierarchy comprising state, provincial, and regency roads or port hierarchy comprising main, feeder, and collecting ports. Different hierarchy come different responsibility and authority,” he explained.

Transportation Researcher from Bandung Technology Institute (ITB), Idwan Santoso, said ferriage transportation is inter-island transportation and the joint between land and maritime transportation. “Ferriage port can be general ports or ferriage ports,” he said.

Therefore, he said, port hierarchy arrangement specified for ferriage service can refer to road network system hierarchy. (Bisnis Indonesia)