Life in Dhaka can be unbearable due to constant traffic jam on almost every road and street. During my recent visit to Seoul, I noticed Seoul also has high rise office buildings and apartments just like in Dhaka but the difference is I did not feel suffocated there. In Korea one out of three citizens has a car. The situation brings big pressure on the city traffic but I was not feeling it at all unlike what we all experience in Dhaka.
As Seoul makes greater efforts in developing its public transportation system, rush hour traffic jam is becoming a thing of the past. Mass Transport System and taxi cabs are so efficient that people are encouraged to use buses and taxis (occasionally). The public transportation (buses) can be much faster than the cars because roads have dedicated lane for buses.
Here is what Oh Se-Hoon, the Mayor of Seoul, said, "Constructing more roads doesn't work in dealing with the traffic problems, developing public transportation is the only solution."
The Seoul city started to improve its public transportation since 2004 with an investment of USD 100 million. Between the bus system and the subway, Seoul opted for the bus system as an urgent priority, because greater impact of bus system is evident with the same amount of investment.
Lee Manki from the Seoul Transport Operation and Information Service Centre says, it costs USD 80 million to construct every 100 meters of subway. He says, the Transport Operation and Information Service Centre can monitor more than 700 traffic cameras in Seoul. If any traffic accident occurs, police and ambulance will be deployed at the site in three minutes. Moreover, about 8,000 buses in the city have been equipped with GPS, so that the speed of these buses can be monitored in real time. With this data, the centre can adjust the traffic lights in accordance with the traffic flow.
From the Seoul model of traffic management we can derive important inputs to solve our own unbearable traffic problem. Here are some suggestions:
1. All commercial and private apartment buildings should use car lift system for maximum utilisation of the space. Instead of using the traditional basement car park system, if a car lift system is used, the number of car spaces can be doubled or tripled.
2. Large 1000 car-capacity multi-storeyed car parks have to be constructed in Gulshan-1 (at least 1), Gulshan-2 (at least 1),Banani (at least 1), Dhanmondi (at least 3), Mirpur (at least 3), Uttara (at least 3) Elephant Road (at least 1), New Market (at least 1), Shahbagh (at least 1), Moghbazar (at least 1), Motijheel (at least 2)
3. Dhaka Metropolitan City has to initiate sophisticated surveillance system. Any car parked illegally has to get an automatic ticket when the surveillance camera will detect a car parked on any street. The software system will issue the ticket automatically without any human involvement.
4. New light weight buses should be allowed within the Dhaka Metropolitan City. The heavy buses which have a huge luggage compartment in the belly should not be allowed to plough through the Dhaka Metropolitan City.
5. All bus drivers should have at least 10 years of driving experience and clean driving record. At least 25 per cent of the bus drivers have to be women.
6. Illegally parked cars on any street have to be towed. Proceeds earned from the illegally parked vehicles should be spent on keeping the footpath clean.
7. The traffic control system should be fully automated and monitored 24X7 to avoid traffic violation and smooth traffic flow.
8. In the long term over-passes and under-passes have to be built for uninterrupted traffic flow.
9. Scope of the metro rail project has to be increased manifold over the course of next two decades.
The writer is executive director, Good HEAL Trust. tanvir@goodhealtrust.org
Simple steps for solving traffic jam in Dhaka
Tanvir Raquib | Published: May 25, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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