The finer our analyses and models become, the more difficult and time consuming it is to prepare and use them, and to integrate their results. Optimizing a project requires that this be done, but optimizing can mean many things, depending on the project.

In the case of the Jakarta Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Basic Design Project, the issues and interactions are complex and there are many potential pitfalls. Objectives that will lead to optimizing this project include:

• Providing adequate economic passenger transport capacity
• Offering acceptable mobility across a wide range of user income levels
• Achieving quick implementation
• Minimizing life-cycle costs
• Fitting the technology to a master-plan network as well as the immediate project
• Recognizing and facilitating property development and its related income
• Structuring the project optimally for joint public-private implementation.

This project is a good example of the trend in today’s infrastructure world to require consideration of an ever-increasing number of variables. Privatization is added to the already-complex series of functional, physical, environmental and financial issues. For these reasons, we are developing a new model, or tool, that will enable us to integrate the complex studies and models that address the various project components in an efficient and cost-effective way—an implementation model.

Mass Transit Implementation Model

The implementation model, being developed as part of our services for project management assistance, will support the learning and decision-making process needed to optimize this fast-track public-private enterprise. This “what if” instrument will allow decision makers to assess the effects of many parameters, both external to and within the project. It will help to identify the most promising directions to take, avoid wasted effort and enhance opportunities for arriving at a successful project outcome. Direction decisions include:

• Establishing government transport-related policies and fund-raising strategies
• Optimizing design parameters with regard to realistic passenger-carrying capacity and life-cycle costs
• Selecting a fare structure and level
• Finding the best organization structure considering financing, tax, profit incentives and other factors.

The implementation model is being developed as a “model of models.” That is, it is a synthesis of the various models or analyses that make up the Basic Design of the MRT system (Figure 1).

Background and Objectives of the Jakarta Mass Rapid Transit Project This project results from an agreement entered by the Government of Indonesia and a private investor consortium—the Indonesian-Japanese-European Group (IJEG). A project management unit (PMU) has been set up under the Governor of the City of Jakarta. The PMU and IJEG have formed a joint working group to undertake the Basic Design Project for this first-priority urban rail mass transit route. The 14-kilometer route would extend from Kota (the historic city center near Jakarta’s old harbor) southward through the city’s most prestigious corridor. The southern terminus is to be just south of Blok M, a commercial complex serving parts of South Jakarta. The Blok M-Kota route is part of an eventual network of urban rail routes intended to provide reliable, high-quality service within the main corridors of the city, complementing the network of existing bus routes and suburban rail services.

Figure 1: Interactive Modules in the Implementation Model.

How the Implementation Model Works

The main areas of the Basic Design include:

• Preliminary engineering
• Forecasting ridership and revenue
• Estimating capital operating and maintenance costs
• Developing methods that will enable the City to establish a continuing fund through which it will contribute to the total investment required for project implementation. (Among sources envisioned is a central-area congestion-pricing plan, which will provide revenue and the benefits of reduced traffic congestion.)
• Developing a detailed financial plan
• Drafting a Concession Agreement through which the project will be able to proceed into final design and
  construction as a public-private partnership.

The main areas of Basic Design analyses are represented in compressed or simulated form. Mass transit ridership, for example, will be estimated in summary form but made sensitive to time and cost inputs for private-vehicle travel and bus travel as well as rail mass transit performance.

The process will model results available from the full-fledged network analysis that is one of the major project components. Operating and maintenance (O&M) cost will be estimated by a system- and service-sensitive formula that replicates output of a detailed disaggregate cost mode. Predicted financial results of the project will be similarly modeled. Capital costs will be modeled parametrically based on the main physical system descriptors.

All the areas of investigation are interrelated in the implementation model so that a change in any of the external parameters or project decisions is reflected in the summary output information regarding each area of Basic Design investigation.

In its initial form, the implementation model will represent the current Baseline Concept and its underlying information and assumptions. As such, it will be preliminary in many respects and not be used to discriminate among alternative choices if the indicated differences between model outputs are small. As the project progresses, the model will be updated and refined regularly so that its value will be maintained.

The model, being constructed as an Excel Workbook, will have the capability of testing the sensitivity of the project to any combination of input variables in little more than the time it takes to list each set of inputs. Output is expected to closely approximate the results that would be obtained if the same inputs were processed through the detailed models and analyses from which the “model of models” is derived.