Moving beyond the rhetoric of urban transit reform

FE Team | Published: June 20, 2026 20:38:51

Transport reform has been promised so often in Bangladesh that new announcements are usually met with more scepticism than enthusiasm. The government's latest plan, centred on route-based uniform bus services and a renewed push for electric vehicles, contains many of the elements that a sound transport policy would require on paper. Yet after watching similar initiatives collapse in the past, the public has little reason to respond with anything more than cautious patience. That said, the transport minister's recent observation that few countries allow such a wide variety of vehicles to operate on the same route is difficult to dispute. The diagnosis is sound and the proposed remedy follows logically from it. Bringing private operators under a coordinated system with shared colour schemes and fixed stoppages could help restore order to roads that have long been governed by confusion and competition. Entrenched syndicates, however, rarely give up profitable chaos without a fierce fight, which means sustained political will is required for the enforcement. Bringing private operators under one system would likely reduce the earnings of many of them as well, making a solid financial plan as necessary as enforcement itself.
The push towards electric vehicles is perhaps the easiest part of the reform package to support. Dhaka continues to struggle with severe air pollution and, vehicle emissions remain a significant contributor to that crisis. In that context, cleaner modes of transport such as electric vehicles offer obvious advantages. Recognising this, the government has extended tax incentives, reduced duties on electric vehicles and eliminated taxes on charging equipment. These measures reflect an understanding that new technologies often require policy support before they can become commercially viable on a large scale. However, many obstacles remain before electric vehicles can become the mass transit solution they are envisioned to be. Chief among them is the absence of adequate charging infrastructure. Commercial operators will understandably hesitate to invest in electric buses while that uncertainty persists. Building a comprehensive network of fast charging stations requires massive capital investment, and without a clear government commitment to underwrite that cost or share the burden, the transition will remain painfully slow.
Cost presents another hurdle. The transport minister himself acknowledged that an electric bus costs up to Tk 28 million and would need eight to ten trips a day just to break even. Achieving that many trips is impossible given the endless traffic gridlock that defines urban commuting, so the numbers simply do not add up in the current environment. This reality points to the need for a broader strategy beyond tax breaks including incentives for domestic production of both batteries and vehicles which potentially could reduce the heavy reliance on imports that drives prices so high.
The transport plan that is likely to draw the greatest public attention is the introduction of monorails. There is no denying that Dhaka needs additional mass transit capacity. Existing metro services are already heavily crowded for much of the day and passenger demand is only going to grow further as time passes. Monorail systems typically carry far fewer passengers per trip than metro rail, which raises the question of how a lower capacity mode is meant to ease pressure that heavier rails struggle to accommodate. Indeed, major infrastructure projects ought to be judged by their practical value rather than their novelty. Monorails often attract interest because they appear modern and futuristic, but transport systems cannot be guided by appearances. The government must clearly demonstrate how a monorail would fit into the broader transport network and whether it offers advantages that justify its enormous cost. In the end, whether any of these plans overcome the scepticism that greeted them comes down to a willingness to sequence and enforce rather than simply announce.