Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway transports 5.79 mln passengers in first year

The Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway (HSR), which celebrated its first anniversary on Thursday, has transported 5.79 million passengers, according to PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia-China (KCIC), a joint venture between Indonesian and Chinese enterprises that built and operates the railway.

Since its commercial launch in October 2023, the HSR has completed over 15,826 train trips, covering more than 2.57 million kilometers. The number of daily train services has increased from 14 at the start of operation to 52, with passenger seats rising from 8,400 to over 31,000.

The highest daily ridership reached 24,132, according to KCIC statistics.

With a design speed of 350 km per hour, the 142.3-km-long railway has cut travel time between Jakarta and Bandung from over three hours to just 46 minutes.

"The Jakarta-Bandung HSR is very convenient, effectively saving time. For passengers with limited time, choosing this type of public transportation is ideal," an Indonesia passenger named Winny said.

The HSR is fully powered by electricity, significantly reducing fuel consumption and emissions. The KCIC said that the green energy initiative saves Indonesia around 3.2 trillion rupiahs (208 million U.S. dollars) annually in fuel costs.

In addition, Indonesian government data indicated that between 2019 and 2023, the project contributed 86.5 trillion rupiahs (about 5.62 billion dollars) to the GDP of Jakarta and West Java.

The HSR has accelerated the people-to-people exchanges and economic interactions between cities along the route.

Businesses around major stations including the Halim station in Jakarta, Padalarang and Tegalluar stations in Bandung, continue to gather due to the influx of passengers.

Many individual operators have seen an increase in income since the opening of the HSR.

"Business is very busy now because a lot of people come to buy souvenirs, usually items like toys, clothes, and so on, which indeed help with daily sales," said a store owner named Dyah in the Halim station.

Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway transports 5.79 mln passengers in first year

The decline in the prices of commercial residential homes in China's 70 large and medium-sized cities stabilized on a month-on-month basis in September, according to official data released on Friday.

In the country's first-tier cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, new home prices edged down by 0.5 percent, compared with a 0.3-percent drop in the previous month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Second- and third-tier cities both registered declines of 0.7 percent month on month, with the former matching the decline from the previous month, while the latter improved from a 0.8-percent drop in August.

In September, prices of resale homes in first-tier cities fell by 1.2 percent month on month, with the decline widening by 0.3 percentage point compared to the previous month, the NBS said.

In the second- and the third-tier cities, resale home prices both fell by 0.9 percent month on month. In second-tier cities, the decline narrowed by 0.1 percentage point compared to the previous month, while in third-tier cities, the decline remained unchanged from the prior month.

China's home price decline stabilizes month on month in September: official data