All buses in Dhaka city will be run under a unified system to bring back order on the road and reduce traffic congestion, according to a post shared on the verified Facebook page of the chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus on Tuesday night.
Under the system the bus companies would compulsorily follow fixed routes and stoppages, the post read.
The unified system would make bus services easy, fast and comfortable, it added.
Currently, city service buses in the capital are owned by many individuals and the drivers and other bus staff are paid based on the number of trips they make, which road safety activists have long been blaming as a reason for speed driving.
Since drivers desperately try to make as many trips as possible, they speed, often ending up in accidents, activists and road safety experts allege.
The chief adviser鈥檚 post comes amid the government鈥檚 years-long struggle to launch company-based bus operations in Dhaka under a 鈥榖us route rationalisation project鈥�.
The Tuesday post of the chief adviser further observed that city bus services in the capital was running without any control, causing traffic jam, accidents, fare hike amid terrible suffering.
While those who are young and physically fit can board buses anyway, but the journey is very difficult for women, children and the elderly ones.
Blaming ineffective bus routes as one of the major reasons for traffic congestion in the city, the post mentioned that traffic gridlock caused a yearly loss of around Tk 37,000 crore, while daily wastage of 32 lakh work hours.
The unified bus operation system would help restore oreder in the bus routes, reduce traffic congestion, end charging extra fares and ensure passenger security and comfort, the CA鈥檚 post stated.
In April this year, an inter-ministerial committee decided to introduce company-based bus services on 21 new routes, going beyond its jurisdiction.
The Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority, the implementing agency of the bus route rationalisation project, gave objection to the routes as they mostly overlapped the project鈥檚 routes.
Eventually in mid-July, road transport and bridges adviser Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan ordered cancelling of the 21 routes.
The plan of running buses under a limited number of companies was initiated back in 1997 under the Dhaka Urban Transport Project to bring order on the road and ease traffic congestion.
The initiative resurfaced by the Dhaka North City Corporation mayor Annisul Huq in 2015.
The DTCA is now planning 42 routes for the proposed 22 bus companies under nine clusters under the project.
