The Characteristics of Rural Water Transport: Case Studies of Three Provinces in Indonesia

Abstract

The role of water-borne transportation in various areas of Indonesia is felt to be very important, especially in those more remote places, which are unreachable, by land transportation. The potential of rivers, especially in serving access for people in remote area is enormous. Compared with currently 300,000 km or roads, Indonesia has utilized only 21,579km navigable rivers. Although it is a very important mode of transport, yet such is the case that this form of transport is no longer flexible in anticipating the settlement development patterns of rural areas which oftentimes are not oriented around water. This can be seen in the proportion of government funding in study areas for water transport is very small compared with land transport. Another problem faced by rural water transport is safety caused by inadequate infrastructure and standard. Regulation and institutional concerns were important issues in three study areas.