AIC transport fellows present two case studies to Indonesian Ministry

The transport fellowship program run by the Australia-Indonesia Centre (AIC) has wrapped up with presentations to key officials on suggested actions to improve transport networks in the province of South Sulawesi.

The event in Jakarta, Indonesia, followed two weeks of training in Melbourne as part of an Australia Awards program, using the findings from several Partnership for Australia Indonesia Research (PAIR) reports.

The Transport Fellowship participants presented two case studies to the Ministry of Transportation which included the Special Staff to the Minister for Economic Affairs and Transportation Investment Wihana Kirana Jaya, the Transport Counsellor of the Australian Embassy Indonesia Charlie Brister and the AIC’s Indonesia Director Kevin Evans.

Workshop guests included Indonesian officials, academics and representatives from disability organisations. They were divided into two groups and were presented with different cases related to the new Makassar-Parepare railway in South Sulawesi in order to provide the policymaking process with research-based evidence.

The first presentation focused on the optimisation of the Makassar-Parepare rail services across five areas.

1. Budgeting and regulations
2. Accessibility of facilities and infrastructure
3. Operational management of facilities and infrastructure
4. Intermodal integration
5. Community support

The group identified 21 national, regional and local stakeholders who can influence further improvements and showed how they implemented the Customer, Actors, Transformation, Why to do it, Owners and Environment (CATWOE) analysis for each area to design possible model solutions.

Applying the same methodologies they had learned from Professor Hermanta Doloi at the University of Melbourne, the other team presented the Transit Oriented Development (ToD) for Mandai district. The Mandai section is one of the important segments of the Makassar-Parepare railway as it is close to the only international airport in the province. The issues at stake were,

1. Collaboration
2. Regulation of spatial planning
3. Increasing regional investment
4. Integration of tourism transportation

The team identified 18 stakeholders including six ministries (Ministry of National Development Planning, Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning, Ministry of Investment and Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy).

By narrowing down these key issues both teams were able to present the problem in a clearer and more comprehensive way using Social Network Analysis (SNA) while also providing additional context, such as good governance in the transport sector, multi stakeholder collaboration and disability-friendly infrastructure development.

In his final remark as the Special Staff to the Minister for Economic Affairs and Transportation Investment, Professor Jaya officially accepted all the presentations for further internal discussion within the Ministry of Transportation and all related agencies.

The Australia Awards Transport Fellowship is also supported by the Ministry of Transportation, the Planning, Development and Research Agency of South Sulawesi and the South Sulawesi Railway Management Agency.

The PAIR research studied by the fellows is funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

AIC thanks all our participants and partners for their support. We hope this program can contribute to the future development of connectivity and community welfare in South Sulawesi.

Images by Febi Trihermanto (AIC) and the Ministry of Transportation.