DMP to enforce automatic signal system

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FE Report
Dhaka Metropolitan Police would enforce series of traffic rules from Sunday and fully implement automatic signal system after more than a decade to ease chronic congestion in the city, its chief said.
DMP commissioner AKM Shahidul Hoque told the FE Saturday that the system which was first introduced in mid-1990s would be launched on a trial basis for two weeks and fully implemented from December 8.
Police will also enforce traffic rules such as ban on parking on the roads and picking and dropping of passengers in places other than bus stations, he said.
"We shall fully abolish manual traffic signal system that we believe is aggravating transport jams in the capital," Hoque said.
"We shall also make sure that no buses or cars abruptly change lanes and overtake other vehicles. We hope enforcement of these rules will lessen congestion in the city," he said.
Although most of these measures have already been in the city's traffic rules and are punishable by the existing laws, the DMP chief said police would go tough in executing their latest decisions.
"We know it is tough job to bring discipline back onto Dhaka's crowded streets, but we are adamant to enforce the rules this time," the DMP chief said.
He said any driver found to have broken traffic rule would be fined Tk1000 and his license would be seized for at least three months.
Experts, however, cast doubts as to whether the latest DMP decisions would alleviate traffic pains in the capital of 13 million people, 150,000 motor vehicles and half a million rickshaws.
"What we understand is that traffic system in the city cannot be fully automated because of narrow and limited number of roads, frequent signal points and abundance of non-motorised vehicles," said an expert at Dhaka Transport Coordination Board.