Developing a multimodal communications system

A baseline study carried out recently finds that Tk 3.0 trillion was spent on railways, roads and bridges to develop the country's communications system in the past 15 years without achieving the desired results. According to a report published in this newspaper on Tuesday last under the National Integrated Multimodal Transport Master Plan, a lack of integration is to blame for such an underachievement. The other major fault with the development of communication infrastructure is an overemphasis on road transports instead of a coordinated development of roads, railways and waterways. Megaprojects do not always deliver the goods especially when they are not interlinked to take over one system's good work by another. For example, imported goods when unloaded at sea ports need to be speedily disposed of by an efficient railway system without the last-mile bottlenecks. Similarly, exportable goods should be transported in real time to the sea ports. 

However, the modes of transportation are not all about goods, the mobility of people depends on how expeditiously passengers can take advantage of commute from one system to another. At the end point of one system, facilities are needed to be commensurate with the rush of people. If the end points of the metro or railways are not spacious enough and interlinked with public bus services or other modes of transportation, chaos reign supreme there. Similarly, road journeys or transportation of inland freights are costlier than those of waterways and railways. The need, therefore, was to invest the lion's share in railways for both people's commute and goods transportation instead of long-route road travel. Because Dhaka is both the single-most important centre of origin and destination of passenger and freight traffic, putting a greater emphasis on developing the railway system is even more compelling. A major portion of the Tk 3.0 trillion could be better used in order to make the existing railway networks more efficient by replacing the meter gauge tracks with double gauge lines and also expanding the system by introducing it to regions like Barishal where railways are yet to be introduced. 

Building an efficient multimodal communications system is the call of the day. When bridges are built in paddy fields or without link roads on one side or both sides, it gives a clear idea of how capriciously the projects under the ministry concerned were approved. A good portion of the large fund was misappropriated. When the need was to develop a comprehensive multimodal communication system with roads, waterways, railways and even airlines receiving a reasonable share of the fund, the policymakers of the past regime either made a blunder or just minded their commissions instead of allocating a fare share to all stake-holders.

Thus there developed a disparate system of communication without ensuring an integrated affair. It is exactly why different bus companies imported luxurious vehicles for long routes to compete with each other. But the capital city's buses cut a sorry figure and the transport workers and owners can defy the government to press for their vested interests. A few expressways cannot cure the malaise. The metro rail has shown the way of dealing with the defiant transport operators. Then the number of car and bus trips on short and long routes is a witness to the anarchic system in existence. Expansion of railways can address the problem.