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Complete lawlessness has become the norm of the Dhaka city’s transport system with hardly any signs that the situation may improve in the near future. 

The chaos in the roads of the capital city grew even worse following the changeover brought in by the student-led mass uprising in July-August last year, leading to the ouster of the Awami League regime and formation of an interim government with Professor Muhammad Yunus at the helm.

Road transport experts observe that certain ill-motivated quarters are bent on exploiting the situation for their own interests amid miserable management and poor monitoring of the city’s transport system. 

They also blamed the regulatory authorities’ failure in establishing order in the transport system and rather making the existing problems even more complex. 

The latest addition to the Dhaka residents’ road woes is the numerous unauthorised battery-run rickshaws, besides the already existing problems of reckless driving by bus drivers and motorcyclists, conflicting initiatives for city service buses, charging of extra fares by CNG-run auto-rickshaw drivers, illegal parking, jaywalking, wrong lane driving, over-speeding and absence of traffic signals.

Frequent road blockades by different groups demonstrating for different demands and the ongoing construction works under some government projects have also made commuting difficult in the city.

Dhaka University honorary professor AI Mahbub Uddin Ahmed, also chairman of Road Safety Foundation, termed the city roads’ present situation as ‘anomie’ or absolute bedlam.

He observes that although the activists of fallen Awami League have mostly gone into hiding, many of them have joined the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and are making relentless attempts to spread anarchy, while some of the student coordinators who led the July-August mass uprising are now chasing their vested interests, which has affected the city’s transport system, among other sectors.  

‘In most countries the operation and enforcement of the transport system is built in such a way that it does not get affected when there is a government changeover,’ said Professor Md Shamsul Hoque, director, Accident Research Institute under the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.

Some opportunist groups are bringing more chaos on the city roads taking chance of the change in the political scenario. 

He also blames the situation on the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority’s ‘incompetency’ which, he alleges, further complicated the city’s road situation. 

Battery-run rickshaws hit the Dhaka city roads from the start of 2024, flouting almost all rules in the absence of strict monitoring.

In May 2024, the then Awami League government walked back its decision to drive battery-run rickshaws out of the capital, surrendering to the intense protests of the drivers of these rickshaws.

Apparently in the face of intense protests, the interim government also has yet not acted on a High Court order, asking the authorities on November 19 to stop the plying of the battery-run rickshaws in the city within three days.

Following the order, several thousand battery-run rickshaw drivers occupied the city roads for several days, demanding scrapping of the High Court order.

Alleging that the police controlled the business of the battery-run rickshaws, Road Safety Foundation chairman Mahbub Uddin Ahmed asked, ‘How do you  expect the police to take stern action against them?’

Reckless driving of the bus drivers, competing with others, obeying no stoppages, and picking and dropping passengers anywhere flouting traffic rules remain a plaguing issue in this regard.

In a bid to establish some order in the city bus service, the government, under its bus route rationalisation project, is scheduled to launch company-based bus operations on nine routes in Dhaka city from February 25.

A similar step, meanwhile, has been taken by the Dhaka Road Transport Owners Association that on February 6 introduced a bus service under 21 companies on the Abdullahpur route that has ticketing facilities from both the counter and e-ticketing facility.

Some passengers alleged that after introduction of the system fewer buses were now running on the route.

Motorcycle menace on the city roads becomes worse every day with more of these vehicles hitting the road daily, ever increasing presence of riders without licence or with fake licence, reckless and unskilled driving and rampant flouting of helmet rules.

According to the BRTA data, in 2024, the country had 45.8 lakh registered motorcycles, while there were only 37.8 lakh motorcycle driving licences, showing that eight lakh motorbikes are running illegally, let alone the running of unregistered motorbikes.

The BRTA, meanwhile on February 10, directed the Dhaka Metropolitan Police to file cases against the CNG-run auto-rickshaw drivers if they were found to charge fares more than the meter reading.

The government last fixed the fares for CNG-run auto-rickshaws in 2015, but soon afterwards most drivers slipped back to their usual practice of charging more than the meter reading.

‘Earlier, same initiative from the government failed as the owners (CNG-run auto-rickshaw) should be prosecuted, not the drivers,’ said Shamsul Hoque. 

In another attempt to return some order on the city roads, the DMP from February 21 will start filing video cases against the vehicles crossing 100-kilometre per hour speed on the Dhaka Elevated Expressway.

No sign of improvement has so far been seen in curbing the rampant practice of illegal parking and address the dearth of parking spaces in the capital city. Nor has there been any check on the problem of jaywalking amid extremely inadequate facilities for pedestrians.

The city’s traffic signal system remains manual as usual as the digital signal system, first introduced in 2001–2002, lacks proper functioning in many areas.

Different initiatives like the launch of timer countdowns, digital display boards, solar panels, remote control systems, and the intelligent traffic system costing many millions of taka also proved futile.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police additional commissioner (traffic) Md Sarwar told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· on Wednesday that they were prosecuting buses and motorcycles for reckless driving while different initiatives were on progress to streamline bus services.

They strengthened their monitoring to stop battery-run rickshaws from running on the main roads, he continued.

The police officer blamed road blockades by demonstrating groups and ongoing construction works on different roads for the regular choking traffic congestion.

‘We are doing much better now,’ he said, replying to a question on lax monitoring after the political changeover. 

Bangladesh Road Transport Authority chairman Md Yeasin said that they were taking action against irregularities based on complaints they received. 

‘We remind all about the Road Transport Act,’ he added.

Mahbub Uddin demanded reform in the bureaucracy, police and army, saying that good will of the political parties and students was prerequisite for change.