A survey by the Ministry of Transportation's Transport Policy Agency and Litbang Kompas estimated that 146.48 million people would travel over the 2025 Eid holiday, more than 52 percent of Indonesia's population (Dori, 2025). Ahead of the peak travel days, the Gorontalo provincial health office checked drivers in two stages: free health checks at community health centres from 17 to 21 March 2025, then fitness checks at terminals and bus depots scheduled from 21 March to 8 April 2025. Intercity bus drivers were checked for blood pressure, blood sugar and drug use (Azhar, 2025).
Checks like these matter, but one factor that often features in crash investigations cannot be read from a blood pressure monitor: fatigue. This case study examines the crash at KM 58 of the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road in April 2024, based on a press release from Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, and draws lessons for managing fatigue among workers who drive.
Summary from KNKT
On 11 April 2024, the committee stated that one cause of the crash at KM 58 of the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road, which killed 12 passengers, was that the driver of an unlicensed travel van had worked beyond the set working hours, was therefore likely short of rest and was prone to microsleep (Komite Nasional Keselamatan Transportasi [KNKT], 2024).
The committee set out the driver's duty sequence as follows. On Friday, 5 April 2024, the van left Ciamis for Jakarta at about 19.30. Around midday on Saturday it returned to Ciamis. On Sunday morning it left again for Jakarta, rested, returned to Ciamis in the afternoon, then drove to Jakarta that night, arriving at 00.00. On Monday, 8 April 2024, the driver collected passengers in Depok at 02.00, in Cilebut at 03.30 and in Bekasi at about 05.30, then set off for Ciamis at about 06.00 (KNKT, 2024).
The committee also noted that the van carried 12 passengers although it was built for 9, plus luggage, which added to its instability. The fatalities were attributed to passengers not wearing seat belts (KNKT, 2024). This article relies on that press release, so we do not discuss details beyond what the committee stated.
Contributing Factors
From an occupational health perspective, the most prominent factor is the driver's working and rest hours. Law No. 22 of 2009 on Road Traffic and Transport limits the working time of public motor vehicle drivers to 8 hours a day, requires a break of at least half an hour after 4 consecutive hours of driving, and in certain cases allows up to 12 hours a day including a 1 hour break (Pemerintah Republik Indonesia, 2009, Pasal 90). The van in this case operated as an unlicensed travel service, outside the licensing system that oversees those limits.
Fatigue Analysis
We use the framework of Williamson et al. (2011), which groups the causes of fatigue into sleep homeostatic factors (time awake and sleep loss), circadian influences and the nature of the task. Their review found clear evidence that sleep homeostatic factors impair performance and cause accidents, and that tasks requiring sustained attention and monotony also reduce performance.
All three appear in the committee's timeline. On the sleep side, the gap between arriving in Jakarta at 00.00 and the first pickup at 02.00 was at most 2 hours, after a run of trips since Friday evening. On the circadian side, the pickups took place between 02.00 and 05.30, when the body normally sleeps. On the task side, morning toll road driving is monotonous. This is our interpretation of the committee's timeline, not a committee finding, because we do not know how long the driver actually slept during that period.
The scale of impairment can be gauged from Williamson and Feyer (2000), who studied 39 subjects, 30 of them transport workers. After 17 to 19 hours without sleep, performance on some tests was equal to or worse than at a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05 percent, and response speed on some tests was up to 50 percent slower. After longer periods awake, performance fell to the equivalent of 0.1 percent.
Lessons for Eid Travel
Checks of blood pressure, blood sugar and drug use (Azhar, 2025) screen for health problems but do not show whether a driver has slept enough. In our view, the lessons of this case also apply to companies, both those running fleets and those whose employees drive home after their last working day:
- Ask about sleep in the previous 24 and 48 hours before business trips or long-distance deliveries, in addition to physical health checks.
- Schedule drivers within the working and rest limits in Law 22/2009, including a break after 4 hours of driving (Pemerintah Republik Indonesia, 2009).
- Avoid scheduling departures or pickups between midnight and dawn after a full working day (Williamson et al., 2011).
- Remind employees not to leave for their home towns straight after a night shift or long overtime, and allow time to sleep before departure (Williamson & Feyer, 2000).
- Enforce seat belt use for every passenger in company vehicles and prohibit loads beyond vehicle capacity (KNKT, 2024).
Nusa Safety Support
Nusa Safety can help companies draw up fatigue and journey management procedures, including driving hour limits, breaks and pre-departure checks, through its technical guidelines and SOP service. Fatigue training for drivers and their supervisors can be designed to fit through custom training module development, while workload and work schedule factors can be assessed through the Ergonomics and Work Environment Assessment. Nusa Safety issues internal training certificates only and is not a PJK3.
This article is general information and not legal or professional advice for any specific case.
References
- Azhar, R. A. (2025, March 26). Jelang mudik Lebaran, semua pengemudi di Gorontalo jalani pemeriksaan kesehatan [Ahead of the Eid exodus, all drivers in Gorontalo undergo health checks]. Kompas.com. https://regional.kompas.com/read/2025/03/26/114340478/jelang-mudik-lebaran-semua-pengemudi-di-gorontalo-jalani-pemeriksaan
- Dori, C. (2025, March 16). Sebanyak 146,48 juta orang diprediksi bakal mudik Lebaran 2025 [146.48 million people predicted to travel for Eid 2025] [Video]. Kompas.com. https://video.kompas.com/watch/1832823/sebanyak-14648-juta-orang-diprediksi-bakal-mudik-lebaran-2025
- Komite Nasional Keselamatan Transportasi. (2024, April 11). KNKT: Penyebab kecelakaan Tol KM 58 pengemudi kendaraan travel tidak resmi bekerja melebihi waktu [KNKT: Cause of the KM 58 toll road crash was an unlicensed travel van driver working beyond time limits] [Press release]. https://knkt.go.id/news/read/knkt%3a-penyebab-kecelakaan-tol-km-58-pengemudi-kendaraan-travel-tidak-resmi-bekerja-melebihi-waktu
- Pemerintah Republik Indonesia. (2009). Undang-Undang Nomor 22 Tahun 2009 tentang Lalu Lintas dan Angkutan Jalan [Law No. 22 of 2009 on road traffic and transport]. https://jdih.kemenkeu.go.id/api/download/fulltext/2009/22TAHUN2009UU.htm
- Williamson, A., Lombardi, D. A., Folkard, S., Stutts, J., Courtney, T. K., & Connor, J. L. (2011). The link between fatigue and safety. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 43(2), 498-515. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2009.11.011
- Williamson, A. M., & Feyer, A.-M. (2000). Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 57(10), 649-655. https://doi.org/10.1136/oem.57.10.649
