Tk 200b lost a year in city's maze of traffic

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FE Report
Some Tk 200 billion is lost every year in traffic jams due to valuable time being lost in the maze of gridlocks in the Dhaka streets, a study said on Wednesday.
It said traffic jam is held responsible for taking away the people's 8.15 million working hours, 40 per cent of which are business hours.
Tk 20 billion is lost due to 3.2 million business hours wasted in congestion, study revealed at a seminar at Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday.
Organised by MCCI and Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CMILT) the seminar titled "Traffic congestion in Dhaka city: Its impact on business and some remedial measures" was chaired by MCCI president M Anis-Ud-Dowla.
Home minister Sahara Khatun attended the seminar as chief guest, while Chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications Ministry Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as special guest. Police commissioner Shahidul Haq, BRAC University Vice Chancellor Dr Aynun Nishat attended as guests of honour. President of CMILT Syed Rezaul Hayat also addressed the function.
The study, which was based on only loss of time of people, modes of vehicles, disclosed that both public transport operators and freight industry have to bear loss of Tk 20 billion each for losing trips daily and restriction on entry into the city during daytime.
Citing data from another study of Dhaka Transport Coordination Board, the paper said that against the speed capacity of 40 kilometres per hour (kph), motorised vehicles can run in the city on an speed of average 15 kph.
The cost that different modes of transport including buses, mini-buses, CNG three-wheelers and rickshaws bear for losing the required speed is estimated at Tk 12 billion a year.
"The real cost incurred from traffic jam is much higher. Because people's productivity, quality of life, productivity of business, reduction in working life span and higher 'sick hours' of employees remain uncountable," said Abdullah Al Mamun, who presented the study.
Citing the record of road accidents which cause deaths, injuries and loss of transports in 2009, he said the cost of road accidents is Tk 500 million per annum.
In her chief guest's speech, the home minister highlighted a number of reasons responsible for traffic jam and said many drives of her ministry in collaboration with the communications ministry did not work due to lack of cooperation from all.
"Without sincerity of all including pedestrians, car owners and drivers, traffic problem not only of the city, but all other towns, cannot be solved," she said.
She said as severity of traffic jam was not created in a year, its solution could not be possible shortly and added that the government wants wholeheartedly to resolve the traffic jam for coming out of not only economic losses but also the national loss.
The minister highlighted the programmes taken to improve the city's congestion including metro rail, flyover, elevated expressway and dedicated bus service and called upon all to work in unison to establish a developed traffic system to accommodate the increasing numbers of the city population.
"The government is thinking of formulating parking regulations. But those cannot be executed without help of all," she added.
The police commissioner blamed the political influence for deterioration of the traffic jam in the city and said many suggestions and decisions like making roads rickshaw-free, pavement hawkers-free, scraping of old vehicles etc., did not sustain due to such kinds of influence.
"Political decisions have become must to solve the traffic problems," he said adding that the government has to take strong and bold decisions like giving space for reducing the gap between total road size and total numbers of transports of the city.
The MCCI president said the city people have to stay at least for one-eighth of a day in the streets being stuck in traffic jams and made a clarion call to implement the transport related projects including mass rapid transport, bypass, connecting roads and waterways speedily under the guideline of Strategic Transport Plan.
He also called for ensuring coordinating of these projects.
"Traffic jam is not held responsible for only economic losses, its severity is no less acute due to ignorance of pedestrians, transport owners, drivers and many others," he said.
The BRAC Vice Chancellor, who moderated the discussion, called for ensuring supply side of the public transport and said without mass transport, traffic congestion of the mega city cannot be resolved.
Talking on the study finding and possible solutions, the speakers suggested carrying out of wide range of studies and researches for supporting data for various transport plans keeping consistency with urban development.
They observed that the traffic congestion of the city is still manageable by taking some strong political decisions and called for taking some immediate measures including introducing commuter bus service for the commercial areas and parking meters to check indiscriminate parking of vehciles.
They demanded decentralisation of administration from union, upazila to district levels and implementation of priority based traffic congestion remedial projects.
Former ambassador Ashfaqur Rahman suggested introducing parking meters and a provision for buying the right of road use by car owners, who want to own more than one car.
He said as the number of private cars increases with the economic growth, it is necessary to take measures to control its number by some intervention.
Journalist Zaheduzzaman Faruk stressed the need for preparing a transport design through research and development and said traffic jam solution is possible by taking short, medium and long-term efforts.
Kamrul Tanveeur Rahman of MCCI laid importance on developing the country's own transport experts to find out realistic solutions to this burning problem.
Mofizur Rahman urged the government to provide time for study and research on transport related issues and suggested to introduce the right transport system on priority basis.
Habibullah Karim called for including the provision of urban planning in the board of Rajdhani Unnayan Kartipakhya by ensuring representation of different organisations and said if the government of West Bengal could take strong political decisions to solve the traffic problem, the Bangladesh government can also reach a solution by doing the same.