Biggest world cities. Transport

[fandroid]

Recent news is that Tokyo is no longer the world's largest city by population. Djakarta, Indonesia now has that title, followed by Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Tokyo has an extremely well developed rail system so it's easy to see how it can function. But Djakarta and Dhaka? How do people get around?

 

[dutchflyer]

Have been several times there, but last time by now at least 10 yrs ago. For as short as could do, as entry point to go to the much nicer other areas of Java island. I speak a little bahasa (the language), its nickname was always: Kota besar, Kota kotor (that means city big - city dirty). And I just happen to live in a town in Nederland where there are quite a lot of people from there or with ties to it.
In the dutch Rail-fan magazine was a very recent article about how KAI= Indonesia Railways (kereta api=fire car!) has developed and transformed. There is now also a kind of metro-look-alike small system. THE best general site for an overview of what railsystems exist all over this world is urbanrail.net, run by a german (or maybe Swiss?) who also edits guidebooks on that. For some there are personal reviews from visits. Check that first.
BUT: some points or personal views, I think it has not really changed that much in general:
1.people over there do NOT move around that much as you may think based on western ideas. Also because just of that horrendous traffic. And all normal everyday service is always just round the corner- it does not feel at all like a megabig city, but more like a loose collection of 100s of smaller villages.
2.for short distance: all the contraptions one finds all over Asia-or even the ´3d world´: bicycle trishaw, motosay taxi (yes, enormous amounts), small vans shuttling up/down major side-streets, teksi for longer rides-here the new fone succeeds-much easier to book a Grab/Uber and without that nasty first have to bargain a ride!
3.citybus, try to avoid that, horrendously overcrowded, mostly serving the major through-roads, but just a basic network. Of course 2po, just pay real money on board (this may have changed since then)
4. and then there is-opened only after my last visit, a fairly small urban railnetwork, mostly along the existing major raillines to out of town, and a brandnew airport branch.
Jakarta is just like most of Nederland in a low lying and prone to flooding unstable ground-so building an underground metro would cost huge sums. Plus that corruption (korrupsi) always comes there with any major work by the state.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Dec 2025 ==

To add to above:
1.that its now assumed to be biggest city probably applies to what over there is named ; JaBoTaBek, the first letters of 4 towns that lay close by - Jakarta - Bogor (some 60 kms south of it, in cooler hills and a favored resort when the dutch ruled), Tanggerang 50/60 KMs to the west, end of a suburban railline too) and Bekasi. That is the same as towns like Luton and Reading add to what would be ´Greater London´
2.yes, now I remember: Jakarta itself has one of the biggest BRT= BUS Rapid Transit networks in the world- the tipical 3d world solution: a separate reserved lane of all major roads with separate metro-style stops and controlled access. Brasil is the main country with many such systems. Functions as a cheaper and quicker to build metro network. Its named TransJakarta.