Number of buses decreases in Dhaka even as population doubles in 10 years

Saturday, 5pm: Hundreds of people are seen waiting for buses on both sides of the Banglamotor intersection in capital Dhaka.

Only a handful of buses can be seen on the road leading towards Karwan Bazar and Farmgate. The moment a bus reaches the bus stand, commuters started pushing and jostling others to somehow board it.
 
This is a usual scene at most of the city’s key points, including Shahbagh, Farmgate and Mohakhali.
 
Commuters have to wait at the stands for a long time before they can get on a bus to go home from their offices.
 

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The suffering of the commuters in the afternoon and evening are almost similar to the one they face every morning while trying to reach offices in time.

The pushing and shoving while getting on buses sometimes lead to accidents and injuries too.

For the crisis, people working in the sector has blamed an abnormal decrease in number of buses, the city’s major mode of public transport, compared to the increase in number of people living in Dhaka in the past decade.

An urban planner has held the government’s ‘indifferent’ attitude responsible for the capital’s public transport crisis.

Transport owners have also made various allegations against the government claiming the nonchalant attitude of the authorities is pushing the city’s transport sector to destruction.

Lack of government planning, insufficient bus stands, traffic jam and hike in the prices of machineries are forcing many to quit the business, they say.

Ten years ago, nearly 7,500 buses plied on the streets of Dhaka, transport owners and workers claim. But that number has astonishingly dropped even as the number of citizens increased twice by 2015.

According to latest Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) data, currently 5,407 buses are covering the 168 routes across the capital. Of them, 3,126 are minibuses and 2,281 buses.

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However, transport owners say there are less than 4,000 buses operating in the city routes.

On the other hand, 16 million people currently live in Dhaka. The number was 7.2 million in 2005, according to Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Experts say general people are suffering continuously as the government is yet to take any mentionable initiative to resolve the public transport crisis.

Trans Silva Limited was the first company in Dhaka to bring in air-conditioned buses on the city streets 10 years ago.

The company had started its business in 1994 after importing 97 CNG-driven buses from Indian auto giant Tata Motors, Trans Silva Chairman Rezaul Karim told bdnews24.com.

It now owns only 25 buses which ply on the Mirpur-Jatrabarhi route.

Karim said, “We started the bus counter service first in the city. Many followed. At that time, people queued up to board a bus and buses were available in every five minutes.”

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“Even after hiking the CNG price then, the government didn’t fix the bus fares for nearly three years. Our business took the biggest hit at that time. Then started the counter eviction drives. All of our counters were shut down.”

He said the people maintained discipline because of the counters. “Also, prices of bus accessories went up extremely after taxes were imposed on them.”

“A large number of commuters in Dhaka is police and students. Most of them don’t want to pay the fare all the time. Insisting them to pay the fare often leads to arguments, scuffle and even at times vandalism of the vehicles.”

“That’s why we had to sell 60 buses to avoid losses,” Karim added.

Remaining buses were leased out to the drivers, he said.

Association of Bus Companies General Secretary Khandakar Rafiqul Hossain Kajal told bdnews24.com: “The government is only to be blamed for the precarious condition of Dhaka’s public transport system.”

“The government will have to give subsidy in some places if it wants the public transport sector to develop. This is a common trend in many countries.”

He said due to traffic jams buses were not able to make number of trips they would like to in any of the routes and that was also hampering the business.

“You won’t continue your business if you incur huge loss at the end of the year after investing millions of Taka,” he said.

On the crisis, BUET’s urban and regional planning department teacher Prof Sarwar Jahan told bdnews24.com: “This city, where over 15 million people live, needs at least 13,000 buses for the commuters.”

“But there are only nearly 3,000 buses. This is the situation mainly because the government is not interested in taking the trouble to do something about the public transport sector.

“Traffic jam also prevents bus owners from making profits. And that’s why they are not much eager to provide better services,” Sarwar Jahan said.

The number of private cars was increasing in the city streets due to the lack of public transport, he said.

“This is only natural. How else will people travel? Fewer buses will lead to increase in number of private cars and cause gridlocks.”

The capital with an area of 1,529 square kilometres has 2,550 square kilometres of roads, according to Dhaka City Corporations.

Main roads cover only 88 kilometres and private vehicles occupy most of them.

According to a 2013 survey, only six percent of commuters in Dhaka use private vehicles but they occupy nearly 80 percent of the streets in the city.

Regarding the allegations made by the transport owners, Road Transport Ministry’s Secretary MAN Siddique told bdnews24.com: “These are completely false accusations. They are always trying to make exorbitant profit. They want Tk 10 after investing Tk 1.”

He claimed that the ‘owners operate their buses outside the capital as the authorities are more vigilant against irregularities in Dhaka’.

He said, “The government has purchased 980 vehicles and 500 more are also in the process of procurement.”

“Private companies have been given the approval to operate as many vehicles they want. And we are building the Metrorail to end the public transport crisis,” Siddique added.