NUMBER OF THIS YEAR'S IDUL FITRI TRAVELERS DOWN

By Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, Sept 20 (ANTARA) - The hustle and bustle of this year's post-fasting Idul Fitri Holidays or Lebaran remained festive even though the number of  Lebaran travelers going to their home towns declined by 0.35 percent compared to that last year.          After all, the death toll of traffic accidents during the period of seven days before and after the Idul Fitri holidays also declined 51.49 percent to 328 deaths from 637 deaths in the same period last year.          The Ministry of Transportation said on Monday that the number of this year's Idul Fitri travelers slightly dropped from that a year earlier.          "The number of Idul Fitri travelers this year dropped by 0.35 percent," Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi said when he officially closed a command post for monitoring Idul Fitri travelers on Monday.          He said that up to the D-Day minus seven and D-Day plus seven this year the number of travelers catered by all modes of land, sea and air transportation system reached 13,980,204, or 0.35 percent lower than the 13,980,378 travelers recorded during the same period last year.          Last year, then transportation minister Jusman Syafii Djamal said the number of Idul Fitri travelers was estimated at 27.25 million, of which 16.2 million used various public transportation modes while the remaining 11.2 million used private cars and motor cycles.          Freddy Number said that land transportation modes, including inland waterway transportation services, recorded a decline in the number of travelers by 0.43 percent.          He said that last year land transportation modes recorded 8,666,392 Idul Fitri travelers while this year it was recorded at 8,629,030 passengers.          The number of those using land transportation increased 1.5 from last year's 5,383,629 to 5,464,134 this year, and those for inland waterway transportation services recorded a decline of 3,59 percent from last year's 3,282,769 to 3,164,896 this year.          Air transportation modes recorded a 15.52 percent increase from last year's 2,163,731 to 2,499,468 this year. "This could happen because of the availability of seats and guaranteed flight schedules," Minister Numberi said.          He said that the sea transportation modes recorded a decline of 43 percent in Idul Fitri travelers from 718,307 last year to 409,429 this year. "But these data are recorded up to the D-Day plus seven. It is expected that it will still increase because sea transportation modes would still  serve Idul Fitri travelers until D-Day plus 15," the minister said.          He said that train transportation modes also recorded a decline of passengers by 1.59 percent from 2,431,948 last year to 2,393,277 this year.          In the meantime, Idul Fitri travelers using two wheel motorcycles were also expected to drop by 15 percent. Director for Transportation Affairs of the Directorate General of Land Transportation, Sudirman Lambali said that travelers using motorcycles were not as high as we had predicted.           "We have predicted that the number of travelers using two-wheel vehicles would reach over 3,6 million but in reality it was only 2.3 million. This is lower than last year's which stood at 2.7 million," he said.          The number of two wheel motorists were monitored in five points such as in Ciasem, Sadang, Merak, Cianjur and Ciamis.          Of the five points, it was found that the highest number of Idul Fitri travelers using motor vehicles was recorded at the Ciasem point in Subang district, West Java where a total of 1,115,199 were recorded, Sudirman said.          In the meantime, police, during their Idul Fitri pacification operations code-named  "Operasi Ketupat" held from September 3 to 18, 2010, found that total of 328 people had been killed in traffic accidents.          The death toll of this year?s traffic accidents during the festivities dropped 51.49 percent compared to that in the same period a year earlier which stood at 637.          Head of National Police Human Relations Brig. Gen. Iskandar Hasan said that the total number of traffic accident victims during  the Lebaran festivities last week reached 1,460, including 328 deaths.          Iskandar said that the victims suffering from serious injuries totaled 438 and light injuries 892. "Cases of traffic violations accounted for 36,962 during the operations, of which 31,377 were ticketed and 5,377 others receiving reminders," he said.          Iskandar said that police also recorded at total of 3,503 criminal cases, of which 2,551 were conventional crimes and 665 were other form of crimes. During the operations, Police deployed 89,521 personnel with 2,592 security posts established throughout Indonesia.          During the Idul Fitri exodus in 2009, police recorded a total traffic accidents of 1,544. The death toll in the total of 1,544 traffic accidents  reached 576 people. The accidents caused over 600 people to sustain serious and 1,397 others light injuries.         The death toll in traffic accidents during the Idul Fitri holidays reached 798 in 2007, and decreased to 548 during the Idul Fitri holiday season iof 2008. ***4*** (T.A014/A/H-NG/A014) 20-09-2010 21:23: