The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro
The Star Online: Metro: Sunday Metro |
- Indonesian capital tweets to beat traffic chaos
- Typhoon weakens off Japan’s Pacific coast
- Lee: Govt reviewing punishment for litterbugs
| Indonesian capital tweets to beat traffic chaos Posted: JAKARTA: Fed up with spending hours stuck in the gridlocked Indonesian capital Jakarta, hundreds of thousands of social media-savvy commuters are tweeting to beat the traffic. The threadbare public transport system in the capital of Southeast Asia's biggest economy, combined with growing spending power, has spawned vast numbers of motorists who are increasingly turning to Twitter to conquer jams.Road users in Jakarta, the world's most active city in terms of posted tweets, are using the microblogging service to warn fellow travellers of traffic-choked roads or arrange car pooling.
Four years ago the IT entrepreneur set up lewatmana.com, a website and associated Twitter account through which commuters can share real-time information about traffic conditions. "Indonesians update their status on Facebook and Twitter all the time, so we thought, why not share information about traffic jams?" Soelistyo told AFP. Lewatmana, which means "via where" in Indonesian, mainly provides information about jams, but also flags up flooded roads or areas affected by the city's frequent demonstrations. The platform relies on its users as well as 100 CCTV cameras installed in office windows across the city to monitor traffic and send out pictures via Twitter. The service, which fires out more than 14,000 tweets a month, has proved a hit and now has around 200,000 followers. Another attempt to solve Jakarta's traffic woes through Twitter is a car-pooling community called Nebengers, which translates as "hitchhikers" and aims to reduce the number of vehicles in the city centre. "Nebengers is like a virtual car terminal, where we can hitch a ride to go to school or the office," said founder Andreas Aditya Swasti, 27. It is rare to give lifts to strangers in Indonesia but Nebengers has still drawn around 4,000 Twitter followers, with more than 400 people using the service every day to either get or give a lift.
"Before, I used to sing or even grumble at the traffic by myself, but now I have found friends to do that with me," she said. With a dilapidated public transport system incapable of serving the city's population and huge volumes of new cars and motorbikes hitting the streets every day, Jakarta needs all the help it can get when it comes to traffic management. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of motorbikes on the streets increased by 460 percent and the number of cars by 160 percent, according to the Japan International Cooperation Agency. The agency, a state-funded body that gives out Japanese government aid and advice, is helping Jakarta fix its traffic woes. Attempts by city authorities to reduce the number of vehicles, such as doubling the parking price, have largely proved ineffective. The latest initiative has seen officials deployed to let down the tyres of illegally parked cars and motorbikes. Public transport, which mostly consists of run-down buses belching toxic black smoke and overloaded trains and minibuses, has proved an unattractive option for a fast-growing middle class that can now afford cars. New mass transit projects - which have been delayed for decades - are slowly springing back to life, with ground-breaking ceremonies for both the city's first subway and monorail taking place this month. But with several years before these are up and running, Jakarta's tweeters could find themselves managing the city's chaotic roads for some time yet. "Where else can you find citizens busying themselves with traffic management? Indonesia is probably the most active, because in other countries, it's the government who is doing this stuff," said Soelistyo. - AFP |
| Typhoon weakens off Japan’s Pacific coast Posted: TOKYO: Typhoon Francisco weakened and veered away from Japan's Pacific coast after forcing more than 1,000 people to take shelter on an island where rain-triggered mudslides left 43 dead or missing last week. The centre of the storm, packing winds of up to 144kph, was located some 400km southeast of Tokyo at noon (0300 GMT) as it moved eastwards at 45kph, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. Meanwhile, Typhoon Lekima, located further east and packing stronger winds, was also expected to be downgraded by this morning. On the volcanic island of Oshima, some 120km south of Tokyo, 1,300 people spent the night in public shelters for fear of more mudslides mixed with rock and volcanic ash. "It has been raining overnight but no landslides or mudslides have been reported near main roads," an official of the Oshima town office said. But the town mayor, Masafumi Kawashima, told local media: "Disasters involving earth and sand could occur after it stops raining. We will maintain vigilance." The town issued an advisory to the island's entire population to take shelter against Francisco. It has some 8,400 islanders but many were thought to have left the island to avoid mudslides. Evacuees on the island were further rattled by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that rocked eastern Japan overnight triggering a small tsunami. — AFP |
| Lee: Govt reviewing punishment for litterbugs Posted: The Government is reviewing penalties against litterbugs, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the launch of the annual Clean and Green Campaign. Lee pointed out that while most Singaporeans take pride in their environment and do not litter, there are a minority who litter, dirty tables at hawker centres and even abuse enforcement officers. "We must not condone such bad behaviour, or let it spread," he said. Details of the review were not available. For now, those caught littering now would still face a composition fine of up to S$300 (RM762). At the campaign launch at Serangoon Central, Lee also said that Singapore's green plan – the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint – is being updated with new programmes such as building environmentally-friendly hawker centres and reducing carbon emission. Lee also presented awards to two community development councils and five constituencies for their "go green" efforts and appointed six gardening ambassadors. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network |
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