Passengers from now on will be allowed to ride in the Hatirjheel circular buses using the Rapid Passes from today.
Road transport and bridges adviser Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan will inaugurate the service today at Hatirjheel.
Currently, Rapid Passes are used only to travel on the metro rail.
In a separate initiative, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority is scheduled to start a countrywide drive from today to remove the buses and trucks which have gone past their economic life.
The Rapid Pass inauguration event will be held by the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority at the Hatirjheel鈥檚 FDC counter at 3:00pm.
The introduction of the Rapid Pass to the Hatirjheel circular bus service is part of a broader initiative to introduce it for all public transports, officials have said.
Currently, the HR Transport Agency is operating the Hatirjheel circular bus services.
According to the DTCA, the passengers can use the same Rapid Passes they use at the metro stations.
The passengers will also be able to buy and recharge Rapid Passes from eight ticket counters of the Hatirjheel bus service.
At the inauguration ceremony, chief advisor鈥檚 special assistants for the road transport and bridges ministry Sheik Moinuddin, for the home affairs ministry Md. Khuda Baksh Chowdhury and posts, telecommunications and information technology ministry Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb are also scheduled to join.
Earlier, the DTCA ran a pilot with the Rapid Passes on some Hatijheel buses.
Since October 2024, the DTCA started to sell Rapid Passes from the metro stations.
Till July 18, total 14.15 lakh Rapid Passes were sold, while another 2.5 lakh will arrive next month.
Regarding the drive to remove the date-expired buses and trucks, a BRTA press release issued on July 13 said that the road transport authority along with the district administrations police, transport owners and workers will run the drive from today.
According to the release, the drive will run during both day and night to remove those buses and minibuses that are older than 20 years, and goods-laden vehicles including trucks, older than 25 years.
Earlier on June 19, the Road Transport and Highways Division under the road transport ministry issued a circular, saying that following the Road Transport Act 2018鈥檚 Section 36, the government had set the economic life of the buses and minibuses at 20 years and the economic life of the goods-laden vehicles, including trucks and covered vans, at 25 years.
Like the ousted Awami League-led government, the interim government has set several deadlines to drive these vehicles off the street, but they are still running, flouting the existing law.
According to the BRTA, from 1988, when it was established, till May this year 85,198 buses and minibuses and 2,14,445 trucks, covered vans and tankers were registered under it. The BRTA has no data on the phased out vehicles registered under it.
Out of these registered vehicles, 39,169 buses and minibuses are older than 20 years, and 41,140 trucks, covered vans and tankers are older than 25 years, as per BRTA.