Background
Indonesia has ratified its commitment to maintain global temperatures below 1.5 °C, which is in line with the Paris Agreement and it is solidified through Law No. 16/2016 about Ratification Of The Paris Agreement To The United Nations. Even though the Indonesian government has set its Enhanced NDC targets (43.20% reduction in emissions by 2030 compared to BAU conditions with international support and net-zero emissions in 2060), these targets are still not enough to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. The energy sector is projected to dominate Indonesia’s emissions in the future.
The transportation sector is Indonesia’s largest energy demand sector, consuming more than 2.4 million TJ in 2022 (Zahari and McLellan, 2024), replacing the industrial sector as the largest sector consuming energy since 2014. Of this, road transportation consumes 85% of the energy, with 70% attributed to passenger transportation and the rest for freight. In regard to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Indonesia’s transportation sector emitted around 202 million tonnes in 2024 (IESR, 2025). Having a similar rate to fuel consumption, road transportation modes contributed around 90% of total transportation sector emissions, followed by the air and maritime transportation sectors, while accounting for roughly 25% of Indonesia’s total emissions.
A few years back, IESR had already built a system dynamics model that figures the pattern of passenger transportation. The model integrates quantitative and qualitative approaches, simulating the impact of various policies. The model is based on the mobility trips and people‘s decision in selecting their mode of transport. The amount of mobility demand growth is influenced by the GDP and total population, while the travel costs would impact the growth negatively. The number of total trips were then defined into two main modal shares: (1) the ownership of private vehicles and (2) the usage of the public transport system. Those two categories were then becoming the basis of conversion to calculate the emission through fuel consumption, both in terms of diesel and gasoline.
IESR would like to improve the existing model in order to cover the road transportation decarbonization comprehensively. The road transportation modes must consider freight/logistics transportation, which are indicated to have contributed significantly to greenhouse gas (GHG) and pollutant emissions. As freight transport was 90% dominated by trucking (GIZ, 2021), it was globally estimated to be around 44% of the GHG emissions in 2017. Meanwhile, the electrification of the HDV potentially provides a significant contribution to the emission reduction target by 20,68%, higher than other fuel technologies adoption: Alternative fuel HDV (6,05%), and Fuel cell HDV (2,22%). Unfortunately, no target yet indicated for truck electrification adoption in Indonesia, as reflected in other national electric vehicle modes target such as electric motorcycles (13 million units), cars (2 million units), and buses (90% of public transport fleets) by 2030 (WRI, 2024).
In parallel, the high dependency level to road-based logistics transportation compared to rail-based freight transport also makes it more concerning. The condition shift to rail freight transportation can also be one of the utilities to allow the emission reduction target, as it provides only a quarter to third of GHG emissions produced by trucks (World Bank, 2022). As per a study by GIZ (2019), the lack of marketing and policy of rail freight services in Indonesia becomes the primary cause of the poor and inefficient rail freight services that leads to lack of interest of the stakeholders and actors to utilize rail as the primary freight transportation. It comprised 0.2% (in tons-kilometer) of market share for rail freight services in 2018 (Mulyono, 2018).
IESR is conducting a study to develop a framework that addresses the transportation decarbonization opportunities through a system dynamics model. In line with our commitment and the aforementioned opportunities and challenges, this study is expected to understand more comprehensively the opportunities of multipathway transport decarbonization in Indonesia upon the national electric vehicle (EV) adoption as well as rail-based mass transport improvement, both in terms of passenger and logistics transportation. This study is expected to commence on 3 November 2025 and finish on 31 March 2026. Other information and details can be found in the following sections. This study expects the data collection, both primary and secondary, to take place as the basis of model validation and refinement according to the latest updated database in Indonesia.
Timeline Proposal
Prospective service providers must submit a proposal package consisting of a technical proposal (background, tasks to be performed, methodology, schedule), a cost proposal (total proposed labor rates and other costs), and a relevant resume and portfolio. All bidders are also required to submit administrative bid documents, which can be downloaded through this link https://bit.ly/IESRBidderStatementLetter
Proposal submissions are open until October 12, 2025, at 11:59 PM WIB, addressed to the Program Manager Energy System Transformation at deon@iesr.or.id and cc to ninette@iesr.or.id, rifki@iesr.or.id, rahmi@iesr.or.id, faris@iesr.or.id, and ilham@iesr.or.id. Please write “RFP Response – Consultancy Services for National Road Transportation Decarbonization Modeling” in the subject line of the proposal. All proposals must be signed by the official organization or representative of the organization submitting the proposal.
