The city of Pekanbaru is the capital of Riau province on Sumatra. It is a large (800.000 inhabitants) modern and rich city with wide streets. Still, the increase in mororised transport is creating more and more congestion. It was decided that a high-capacity bus system similar to Jakarta's and Yogjakarta. Trans Metro Pekanbaru opened on 18 June 2009 with an initial two routes and 20 buses. One more route was opened in 2010 and three more are planned for 2011.

The buses are high-floor with high doors on one side only, which give level access to the platforms in the bus shelters. However, these platforms in the shelters are very small and can only be reached by some high steps..... Tickes are sold in the shelters for the subsidised price of Rps 3000 (the subsidiy is 50%). Though in theory electronic tickets are used, in practice the cards ar not loaded and are taken in by the conductor in the bus who then hands them to the person selling tickets in one of the next shelters who happens to be running out of stock... Frequency and patronage of the buses are not yet impressive and the system needs to be expanded and services increased if it is to make any difference in ttaffic congestion. However, it defintely is an improvement over the normal system of the old private smaller buses.