Existing Crisis in Local Buses

Photo: Prabir Das

“I wish I had wings so that I could fly to my school!”- dreams Nuha Amin (not her real name), a student of class VI of Agrani High School and College. Little Nuha who takes a local bus to reach her school can not reach the ceiling to hold on the handles, yet she manages a place to stand in the crowd with a heavy school bag on her back. While getting down, she always tries to stand close to the gate of the bus, but the passengers often push her in the middle making it difficult for her to get down.

Nuha's experience is one of the most common scenarios that the local bus commuters face on a regular basis in Dhaka today. Now-a-days, according to the regular passengers, the local bus services have failed to meet their travel needs because of the existing poor quality services which mostly create trouble for the children, women and disabled persons.

As buses are the cheapest medium of transport in Bangladesh and Dhaka being the most densely populated city, problems in public transport is inevitable. As there is no alternative to buses, people must have to use local buses, as private buses are not sufficient in proportion to the number of passengers.

At present, poor service and worst environment are making the passengers who use local bus services in Dhaka city regularly very uncomfortable. They have to face a number of problems like- long waiting period, traffic jam, increased amount of fare, over-crowd, unavailability of seats, rude behaviour of the bus staff members, delayed boarding time, discomfort inside the bus, transport inadequacy during peak hour and many more. 

“I find very little legspace, as in most of the local buses, the space between seats is not enough to sit comfortably especially for people who are a bit taller,” says Habibur Rahman, a regular passenger of local buses who travels from Farmgate to Airport everyday for work. Besides all these factors, standing and hanging on the door, unexpected breakdown for fitness problems, unavailability of information of bus services, lack of facilities in stoppage areas add more trouble to the passengers of local buses create a bitter experience. 

While asking about the facilities that passengers demand, they have mentioned a couple of things like-improved interior environment, government approved rational fare chart, well - mannered bus staff members and picking up passengers from specific stops, so that they could travel with more convenience. “The tendency of picking up passengers from unspecified stops must be stopped immediately,” claims Hasina Begum, another regular passenger of city buses. Disciplined behaviour of passengers is also a great solution as they don't think others' problems while boarding and alighting desperately.

The authorities are also taking this issue quite seriously. “According to the rules in Motor Vehicles Ordinance and Motor Vehicles Rules, the seat capacity is limited in a bus and the bus staff cannot board extra passengers,” says Md Nurul Islam, Deputy Director (Eng) of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA). “Without following the rules and regulation if they keep taking passengers illegally for extra money, it's their fault and our law enforcement department strongly deals with these problems,” adds Islam. 

However, the combined efforts of the authorities, Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Malik Samity and the passengers can make the local bus services a pleasant mode of travel so that everybody can travel by the local buses without any fear and hesitation.