• International Journal of Technology (IJTech)
  • Vol 12, No 5 (2021)

Impact of Odd-Even Driving Restrictions on Air Quality in Jakarta

Impact of Odd-Even Driving Restrictions on Air Quality in Jakarta

Title: Impact of Odd-Even Driving Restrictions on Air Quality in Jakarta
Zulkarnain, Al Ghiffary

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Cite this article as:
Zulkarnain, Ghiffary, A., 2021. Impact of odd-even driving restrictions on air quality in Jakarta. International Journal of Technology. Volume 12(5), pp. 925-934

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Zulkarnain Departement of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus UI Depok, Depok 16424, Indonesia
Al Ghiffary Departement of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus UI Depok, Depok 16424, Indonesia
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Abstract
Impact of Odd-Even Driving Restrictions on Air Quality in Jakarta

Governments often enact driving restrictions through transportation demand management programs to solve traffic congestion and air pollution problems in a city or region by prohibiting the public from using their private vehicles during certain days. Driving restrictions are quite prevalent in cities in which many private cars are operated, including DKI Jakarta, where such a program has been implemented for several years. The purpose of this study is to estimate the effect or impact of the expansion of odd-even driving restrictions on DKI Jakarta’s ambient air quality. Carried out by regression discontinuity design, this study found that the odd-even driving restrictions do not significantly reduce DKI Jakarta’s air pollutants. Several factors that affect the restrictions’ impact include the restrictions’ selective mechanism and compensating response managed by the public. Thus, the government should improve the restriction mechanism or enact more impactful programs to solve the air quality problem in DKI Jakarta.

Air quality; Driving restrictions; Regression discontinuity design; Transportation demand management

Introduction

Air pollution has been considered one of the most concerning environmental issues around the world. The high concentration of air pollutants leads to several negative impacts on human health. In 2016, outdoor air pollution resulted in an estimated 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide, with about 91% of those premature deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions (World Health Organization, 2018).

    DKI Jakarta has been struggling to solve the air quality problem in recent years. The air quality of DKI Jakarta, Indonesia, has deteriorated, with the PM2.5 average concentration escalating to 49.4 ?g/m3 in 2019, which is about 66% higher than in 2017 (IQ Air, 2019). This concentration is almost five times as much as the PM2.5 annual mean guideline established by the World Health Organization. Motor vehicles have become the primary source of pollution in DKI Jakarta. In particular, the contribution of motor vehicles to the PM2.5 concentration of DKI Jakarta is approximately 32–57% (Vital Strategies, 2020). This is due to the rapid motorization of DKI Jakarta and its surrounding regions. The number of motor vehicles in DKI Jakarta has continued to surge to 22.8 million units in 2019, which includes 1.6 million and 407,000 additional motorcycles and private cars, respectively, during the last two years (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2020). Even after the enhancement of public transportation, Syafrizal et al. (2016) estimated that the number of motor vehicles operated in DKI Jakarta is still expected to grow by at least 120% between 2011 and 2021.

An intelligent transportation system, which is the adoption and application of modern information and communications technology, and the deployment of electric vehicles in the vehicle market are some of the prospective alternatives for resolving traffic challenges and carbon footprint problems (Zulkarnain et al., 2012; Leviäkangas, 2013). Moreover, transport policies have become primary strategies for mitigating climate change impacts (Leviäkangas, 2013). Thus, to accelerate the implementation of air quality control in DKI Jakarta Province, the government issued the DKI Jakarta Governor’s Instruction (InGub) No. 66, 2019, regarding air quality control. The DKI Jakarta government plans to rectify the ambient air quality issue through various programs and policies that hopefully may control the sources of air pollution, encourage the public to alter their lifestyle by utilizing public transportation, and optimize the city’s reforestation efforts.

As part of the instructions, the government implemented odd-even driving restrictions, a traffic management system enacted by the government of DKI Jakarta to curtail the travel of passenger cars on certain roads based on the vehicle license number. The program was first implemented on August 30, 2016, on nine roads around DKI Jakarta and was expanded to cover 25 roads on September 9, 2019. The restrictions are enforced from Monday to Friday from 06.00 to 10.00 UTC+07:00 (or Western Indonesia Time—WIB) and from 16.00 to 21.00 WIB. The government believes this action will yield positive impacts on solving traffic congestion and air pollution problems. Several studies have implied that transportation demand management (TDM) based on vehicle operating restrictions has been proven to reduce pollutant emissions by more than 50% (Bigazzi and Rouleau, 2017).

Although several studies have argued that such a program can alleviate traffic congestion and air pollution, the real implementations in some regions show the opposites. Some studies have suggested positive findings of driving restrictions on improving urban air quality. For instance, Viard and Fu (2015) evaluated the one-day-per-week restriction in Beijing, and their findings suggest that the restriction succeeded in reducing air pollution by 21% after implementation. Conversely, Ye’s (2017) findings in Lanzhou suggest that the restriction did not improve air quality and caused the public to adapt to the restriction by acquiring secondary vehicles.

     Odd-even driving restrictions have been implemented, though on a limited scale, in cities worldwide, including in China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, and Central/Latin America (Farda and Balijepalli, 2018). Specifically in Indonesia, several studies have been conducted regarding the impacts of DKI Jakarta’s odd-even driving restrictions, albeit mostly on traffic congestion (Nafila, 2018; Yudhistira et al., 2019). Limited studies about transport policies’ environmental impacts have also been conducted, one to evaluate overall low-carbon transportation policies in Southeast Asia (Bakker et al., 2017) and the other to specifically assess TDM programs’ impacts in Bandung, Indonesia (Farda and Balijepalli, 2018). However, a study specifically dedicated to assessing the impacts of DKI Jakarta’s odd-even driving restrictions on air quality has remained unavailable until now. Therefore, an empirical study is imperative to confirm the local government’s claim that the driving restrictions implemented in DKI Jakarta positively impact urban air quality. This paper aims to estimate the impact of driving restrictions on several air pollution parameters in DKI Jakarta, Indonesia. 

Conclusion

    The expansion of odd-even driving restrictions in DKI Jakarta has not succeeded in improving air quality. There was no significant reduction of air pollutants after the DKI Jakarta government carried out the restrictions. Several factors, such as the weakness of the restriction mechanism and the compensating public response, may restrain the impacts of the restriction on reducing DKI Jakarta’s air pollutant concentrations. However, results from the placebo test may indicate premature effects of the restrictions during the trial period. The restriction has not shown a significant impact. Still, by considering the factors that concealed the actual and potential impact of air pollutant reduction, the government can evaluate and develop more improvements in the restriction mechanism or enact more impactful programs to solve the air quality problem in DKI Jakarta.

Acknowledgement

        This study serves as the second author’s final thesis, which was conducted to receive a Bachelor of Engineering (B. Eng) degree from the University of Indonesia. The authors would like to express appreciation and gratitude to the Directorate of Research and Development Universitas Indonesia for funding this study through PUTI Q1 Research Grants Universitas Indonesia No: NKB-1433/UN2.RST/HKP.05.00/2020. The authors would also like to express appreciation and gratitude to AirNow, the DKI Jakarta Environmental Agency, and BMKG for providing such crucial and valuable data.

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