Implementing Strategic Transport Plan

Dhaka City's chaotic transport operation has defied every attempt to rationalise and improve it. Now experts cite that mega projects have not been complemented by foundational improvement in bus service, pavements and signalling. So commuting in the capital city has failed to improve. Now the Strategic Transport Plan (STP)-2015 will not only undergo a revision but also require greater investment---in some cases more than double the original estimated expenditure. The 2025 STP rules out addition of any more Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) to the ones under construction or planned for Dhaka City. Instead, it puts emphasis on bus network, bus route rationalisation and traffic management. The 20-year plan for the city's transport operation will require an investment of $59 billion in place of $20.57 billion estimated under the 2015 STP.

If additional infrastructure development is not on the cards, why the expenditure will be three times the earlier estimated amount is somewhat intriguing. According to a report carried in the FE, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) and the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA) will develop together vehicle inspection centres and bus fleets, upgrade depots and install intelligent transportation systems (ITS) under the World Bank-financed Bangladesh Clean Air Project phase-1. This may be part of the overall upgraded transportation because under the project, 500 electric buses are planned to be introduced from July 1 next. There is just a month before the likely introduction of electric bus but little, if any, infrastructure development is noticeable as yet.

If the electric buses form part of the bus-route franchise system, how the authorities propose to bring the bus companies under it needs to be cleared. Its latest attempt to rationalise bus routes and develop a franchise system for bus companies ended up in utter failure like its previous attempt to introduce Nagar Paribahan. Initially, the Nagar Paribahan made quite an impact but this time the move lost its way from the start in the face of stiff resistance from bus operators. Also, the memory of the authorities' failure to take the old and ramshackle buses off the road for dumping those into the junk yard is still fresh. How can the traffic system in Dhaka be streamlined without completing this basic task? Then, without addressing the problem arising out of the proliferation of motor cycles and battery-run rickshaws of all shapes and oddities, which have taken over the city like alien hordes, no improvement to the city's traffic system can be imagined.   

Dhaka's traffic system calls for an overhaul, not just an upgrade. A city that is yet to put in place an effective traffic signal system cannot change itself overnight. Even the men and women in uniform regulating the traffic flow are dispensable if a modern and ITS management system can be introduced. But vigorous opposition is expected from the companies now operating their buses as erratically as they like. The Traffic Division of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) and the bus operators have long colluded with each other to sustain the anarchic traffic system with the politicians also sharing the unclean profit. This nexus has to be busted before introducing any noteworthy system of traffic management. In the past many good initiatives were sabotaged before those could take roots. These issues have to be taken care of on a priority basis before starting the works of the traffic system's foundational tier.