Higher-axle vehicles key culprit: Study

Goods-laden vehicles of higher axles carry much higher than allowable weight limit compared to those with lower axles, thereby contributing to damaging expensive road infrastructure 16 times, according to a new study.

Such overloading caused an increase in maintenance cost per single lane per kilometre at Tk 0.615 million without counting other issues like accident and damage to vehicles, officials said.

Roads and Highways Department (RHD) in a study under a JICA-funded technical project on 'Sitakunda Axle Load Control Station' also found that overloading trend was higher towards Chattogram than towards Dhaka.

However, 7.76-per cent vehicles on both directions violated the allowable weight limit from 5.0 per cent to above 40 per cent.

However, RHD officials said some higher-axle vehicles were found placing false axles before genuine axles which touched down the road at the time of counting the number of wheels at the weighing station.

But such wheels do not actually play any effective role in controlling overloading on highways.

The Sitakunda ALCS is the only fully functional station of the RHD that gets the highest number of goods vehicles for its location near the country's prime Chattogram seaport that ships the country's 90 per cent export-import trade.

According to the officials, the station-based study has spotlighted a major picture of overloading situation in the country which needs further review from the policy level to the design level of road infrastructure in light of continued economic growth.

The RHD and the Japanese expert team conducted the study under the 'capacity development of managing and controlling overloaded vehicles' project when 203,429 vehicles towards Dhaka direction and 77,906 towards Chattogram were inspected in March, April and May 2023.

Of the total vehicles, 15,249 Dhaka-bound vehicles were found overloaded and 6,595 Chattogram-bound ones overloaded.

Overloading trend towards Chattogram was found higher with 8.4 per cent, while 7.5 per cent vehicles towards Dhaka carried overloaded goods.

According to officials, the alarming revelation of the study is seven-axle vehicles mostly contribute to damaging highways nationwide as they carry goods from different land ports as well.

The RHD's another study for yearly maintenance cost detected Tk 6.10 billion maintenance cost due to road damage for overloading.

Some 32.5 per cent seven-axle vehicles carried loads of 40 per cent and above than the allowable limit of 52 tonnes, the RHD-Japanese expert team study revealed.

The trend of 5.0-per cent overloading by two-axle vehicles was found 99.65-per cent cases, followed by 99.32 per cent by five-axle ones, 68 per cent by four-axle ones and 60 per cent by six-axle ones.

But the seven-axle vehicles were found crossing the allowable limit by 5.0 to 40 per cent in all cases.

The study, however, found that this trend was not found in the Chattogram-bound vehicles when almost all axle vehicles violated 5.0-per cent allowable limit.

"As the overloading rate of vehicles with greater number of axles is relatively high, it will be challenging to reduce overloading from these vehicles," said an official involved with the study.

The weight limits of different axle vehicles were given in an office order by the Road Transport Highway Division in 2016, allowing two-axle vehicles with different numbers of wheels to carry 13 tonnes, 16 tonnes and 22 tonnes, which are still higher than the normal allowable limits.

The allowable weight limit for three-axle vehicles 30 tonnes, four-axle vehicles 40 tonnes, five-axle vehicles 47 tonnes, six-axle vehicles 49 tonnes and seven-axle vehicles 52 tonnes.

The office order introduced fines for vehicles in violation of crossing the permissible limits.

The RHD on Monday organised a stakeholder meeting to share the findings of the study where leaders of transport owners, workers, business community, highway police, BRTA, Bangladesh Bridge Authority, delivered their respective views.

According to the meeting, transport owners and workers sometimes become captive at the hands of middlemen who manage goods.

Transport worker leader Osman Ali said drivers were often abandoned by these groups when he denied carrying overloaded goods.

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