Bringing discipline to traffic chaos

Rationalisation of bus routes holds the key to resolving the capital's perennial traffic anarchy, said transport experts and officials at a meeting yesterday.

“According to the revised strategic transport plan (RSTP), bus service carries more than 56 percent passengers in Dhaka,” said Dr SM Salehuddin, a transport expert on the Dhaka south mayor-led committee on rationalising bus routes and disciplining public transport system.

Five metro rail and two rapid bus service systems, if implemented by 2035, as recommended in the RSTP, will carry only 17 percent passengers all together, he said at the committee's first meeting held at Nagar Bhaban.

“But one must note that five metro rails and two rapid bus service systems would cost Tk 2 lakh crores while it would cost at best Tk 20,000 crore for disciplining the entire bus service system,” said Salehuddin.

The foremost challenge to the desired operation of bus service is that there are over 200 companies that own the buses and compete against each other to grab same passengers, leading to hazard and indiscipline on roads, he said.

He said buses operated by the same company but leased out to drivers do the same.

Farid Ahmed Bhuiyan, chairman of Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation, said, “There is no alternative to bus route rationalisation -- and the unhealthy competition [for passengers] has to be stopped -- as well as reducing the staggering number of cars.”

The corporation operates around 500 government-owned buses to augment public transport service in addition to what is provided by private operators, he said.

Mir Rezaul Alam, additional commissioner (traffic) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said bus route rationalisation would be a foremost measure to salvage the city from traffic indiscipline. But there are many challenges as well, he said, adding that over-population might foil any good initiative.

“So, there is no alternative to decentralisation or the city may go absolutely dysfunctional in the next two decades,” he said. “The current all-pervasive indiscipline across the city is unmanageable for any city management authority.”

Dhaka South Mayor Sayeed Khokon said the committee's goal was to ensure an environment-friendly Dhaka with safe roads and free of traffic jam in the next two years.

Replying to a question as to what the progress of bus route rationalisation was, the mayor said they would review it.

Mohammed Moshiar Rahman, chairman of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, and Khandakar Rakibur Rahman, executive director of Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority, also spoke.