BY MANY accounts, Whoosh – the first high-speed railway in Indonesia – has been a resounding success since its launch in October 2023. The fast train, which can reach a top speed of 350 kilometres an hour (kmh), plies a route between two of the country’s largest cities – the capital Jakarta and Bandung in West Java.
It has served more than four million passengers as at early July, and saw a daily record of 24,135 passengers during the recent school holidays. According to the minister of state-owned enterprises, Erick Thohir, Whoosh has contributed some 86.5 trillion rupiah (S$7.1 billion) to the gross domestic product of Jakarta and West Java during the 2019-2023 period.
BY HYRIE RAHMAT
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