The city of Medan is one of the 5 major cities in Indonesia with a population of 2 million people. It has an area of 265.10 km2 with a density of 8.130 people/ km2. It is ranked 15th as one of the cities with a high density out of 90 other big cities in Indonesia.
As the number of people and passengers have increased significantly in Medan, congestion becomes a major issue, and in the future, it could reduce productivity of the community. Today, public transportations are not the option for the city of Medan's residents to accommodate high mobility. There are only around 1% of public transportation vehicles in Medan, while the rest are private vehicles. Motorcycles are the main choice for people and the number of operated motorcycles is an estimated amount of 4,523,956 units. This condition is predicted to cause severe congestion within Medan's main roads by 2024.
To serve the community mobility and reduce congestion within the city, Medan's Government in Regional Development Plan 2006-2025 and Medium Term Development Plan 2016-2021 has a development plan for mass urban/mass transportation system in the form of a Light Rail Transit (LRT) that will be integrated with the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. The mass transportation development project is carried out under the scheme of Cooperation of Government Business Entities (KPBU).