Bruneians and Indonesians can now travel by bus between Brunei and Pontianak for $70 (one way) or 550,000 rupiah, thanks to the start of a bus service yesterday.
The 26-hour journey stops in two places, Antikong (bordering Malaysia and Indonesia) and Sibu in Sarawak for refuelling. Yesterday, the bus arrived in the Sultanate at around 2pm after making its inaugural journey. It was greeted by staff of Tenaga Travel Agency, the local agent for the service.
Managing Director of Tenaga Travel, Hj Thani bin Hj Abd Hamid, said the bus leaves Brunei at 10am, while it departs from Pontianak at 7am. He said based on a survey, not less than 80 passengers were received to date, comprising Indonesian workers and Bruneians. The bus stops at the bus stand in the capital, while in Pontianak, it stops in Jln Pahlawan.
Tenaga Travel, which has an office on the first floor of the multi-storey oar park in the capital, also offers packages to Pontianak.
The bus from Perusahaan Umum Damri, Pontianak in West Kalimantan has the capacity to seat 30 passengers and is manned by two drivers, who work on rotation. Its Head of Operation, Iwan Budianto, said the bus would depart regardless of the number of passengers. However, the bus does not stop in Malaysia to pick up passengers. For safety, insurance is also offered to the passengers.
Meanwhile, three travel agency staff also travelled on the coach from Pontianak yesterday. Lukas Gunawan from Duta Tour & Travel said to date, the response to the bus service has been good and the journey was smooth, except for minor hiccups at the Sg Tujoh control post for obvious reasons as it was on its inaugural journey.
During the official launching of the bus service in late September this year at the Land Transport Department, it was highlighted that the commercial bus services ferrying passengers between Brunei Darussalam and neighbouring states would start operations on September 29, 2008 with the first phase including popular destinations such as Kota Kinabalu and Miri.
The first phase, under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in late 2007 between transport ministers from the BIMP-EAGA nations (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines), stated that the first commercial routes will start in Borneo, which includes Brunei, Sabah, Sarawak, Malaysia, and parts of Western Kalimantan.
Apart from providing commercial routes to popular destinations, the new service also aims to "stimulate" activities in the transport sector and economic growth between the BIMP-EAGA nations.
A set of "Standard Operating Procedures" formalised by BIMP-EAGA's Land Transport Group has also been drawn up to allow commercial vehicles to pass through each neighbouring states, reinforced under "Protocol 1" under the "Asean Framework Agreement on the Facilitation of God& in Transit".
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