Designated city bus stoppages, bays not in use

The unruliness on the city roads continues as almost all city service buses tend to avoid stopping at the designated bus stoppages and bus bays and remain alarmingly competitive defying rules and regulations.

Urban transport and academic experts alleged that currently the whole city became a ‘bus stoppage’ while it was the main responsibility of police to make drivers to follow the rules.

The fragmented bus operators should be taken under a number of companies to stop the ‘unholy’ competition on roads and passengers should also compel bus drivers to take the in or drop them off at stoppages only, they said.

It the most common scene on the city roads that no buses follow the designated stoppages and bus bays at all.

As buses compete to beat one another, overtaking and even obstructing other buses on roads to be first to pick up the passengers, the resultant disorder is causing frequent fatal accidents in the capital.

People are seen raising their hands to stop the busses in the middle of the roads, paying little attention to whether the busses were speeding away or slowly moving forward in traffic gridlocks, as the bus drivers have the habit of taking them on board from anywhere.

The few bus bays in the city are used for floating shops or parking lots for legunas, rickshaws and auto-rickshaws but not for buses.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police also identified some spots for bus stoppages in the capital since 2017 and currently their number stands at 167.

Though there are indications and signage to inspire usage, these stoppages are less frequently used. 

Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority officials said that there were some bus bays scattered across the capital such as the ones at Airport, Farmgate, Kakoli, Badda and Gulshan areas.

DMP additional commissioner for traffic department Mofiz Uddin Ahmed said that the bus drivers should open the bus doors and take or drop passengers at these stoppages only.

‘These irregularities have been continuing for a long time so it will take more time to establish these systems,’ he said.

He however claimed that the situation had improved already.

‘Currently the entire city has become a long stretch of stoppages while the bus drivers stop their buses even to pick up one passenger on road,’ said SM Salehuddin, former executive director of the then Dhaka Transport Coordination Board.

He blamed poor bus operation and management system for the situation while he also said that 167 stoppages were insufficient for the city.

Salehuddin said that it was the responsibility of the police to make people and drivers follow the rules.

As the government was now advancing with the bus route rationalisation project to bring all city service buses under six companies, it had agreed to use its land for purposes like bus bays, he added.

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology’s Accident Research Institute assistant professor Kazi Md Shifun Newaz told New Age that locations of most bus bays and stoppages were not been updated in the capital as these should not be adjacent to the intersections.

As bus drivers were prone to take onboard passengers from anywhere on roads, passengers also took the advantages of getting off at any place on the roads defying rules, he said.

‘Police should make the bus drivers use these facilities while people should also compel the drivers to follow the rules,’ he said.

In the capital, around 25 per cent fatal accidents involved buses while the major reason behind road accidents in the capital was reckless driving, Shifun Newaz added.

DTCA traffic engineer Md Anisur Rahman said that it was difficult to make more bus bays in the capital as most areas had already been developed.

‘There are still possibilities to make a bus bay at Science Lab area while we need only motivation for that,’ he said.

Some more spots had been identified to build bus bays though the final decision was yet to be taken, Anisur said.

The officer said that the bus drivers would not stop at the designated stoppages till the existing system of bus operation based on competition was not changed.

Between 1997 and 1999, bus stoppages and bays were constructed under Dhaka Urban Transport Project at Kalabagan, Pathapath, Shahbagh, Farmgate, Paltan and New Market, but they fell into disuse.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net