A new air-conditioned (AC) bus service is going to be introduced on four routes of the city almost a decade after such service was suspended following wrong selection of the routes, sources said.
Transport experts have already expressed their doubt about the success of the new AC bus service as those buses will be running on the same corridor where thousands of buses are blamed to have created anarchy and worsened traffic congestion.
There is no reflection of demand and no plan to run all the buses on a corridor under a single company to avoid duplication of services.
The sources said the Regional Transport Committee (RTC), a body of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) to give permits to bus routes, has already allowed Nitol Motors Ltd to ply 75 AC minibuses on three routes on its application. One route is yet to get the RTC's permission but is supposed to get it soon.
The approved routes are Motijheel-Abdullahpur, Motijheel-Narayanganj and Japan Garden City-Gulshan-2. The route from Japan Garden City to Rampura Bonosree through Mirpur 10 has not yet received permission.
The sources said the RTC has allowed 25 buses for plying on each route based on their traditional methodology.
Though Nitol Motors has assessed the demand for more buses on these routes, neither the RTC nor the bus company has any study.
It is found that there are already more than 60 operators plying their buses on the Motijheel-Abdullahpur route. This route is also in the middle of Bus Rapid Transit line-3 where the number of buses was supposed to be reduced.
Besides, the city's lone AC bus service operated by state-controlled Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) also runs its buses on Motijheel-Abdullahpur and Motijheel-Narayanganj corridors where new AC bus service is also being planned.
The city had three modern AC bus services in the north-south corridor during 1990s and 2000s but those could not be operated profitably due to traffic jam.
As the authorities concerned had allowed too many operators on those AC bus routes, the most desirable public transport service could not do business for more than four/five years due to unruly behaviour of other operators.
In the 20-year transport policy, Strategic Transport Plan (STP), it is highly recommended to run all kinds of buses on a corridor under one company to avoid duplication of services and bring discipline on the roads.
When contacted, the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA) failed to provide any information about the new AC bus service though the authority is empowered to coordinate transport-related issues in greater Dhaka. DTCA officials said there is a clear directive to the BRTA not to permit any more route on the corridor of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), the mass transit system, being planned to be introduced from Gazipur to Kamrangirchar.
Chairman of Nitol Motors Ltd Abdul Matlub Ahmad said the new AC bus service has been planned to be operated involving private operators for their long experience to run buses on various routes.
"They (operators) will hire drivers and helpers to run the AC buses. We will propose a share to them against their down payment," he told the FE over phone.
Mr Matlub, also dealer of Indian TATA Motors, said the 50 imported TATA AC minibuses will eventually be owned by the operators after 10 years.
However, the government has still no guidelines to fix per kilometre fare for the AC buses and set standard of vehicles to be imported for introducing those for the city's middle class commuters.
BRTA sources said bus fares of AC bus services were fixed by the bus owners. The BRTC's AC bus fares were also fixed by a committee formed under the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges.
It has fixed Tk 2.45 for running per km of diesel-operated AC (Ashok Leyland) buses and Tk 2.00 per km of gas-run AC (Daewoo) buses.
Nitol Motor Chief Executive Officer Mostaque Ahmed said they are importing TATA diesel-operated minibuses with 34-seat arrangement which would cost around Tk 4.0 million each.
He also said the Nitol Motors considers the commercial aspect during the selection of a route but admitted that there is a lack of expertise on the selection of routes as related studies done by the World Bank and the Japan International Cooperation Agency were not shared with the private sector.
DTCA Traffic Engineer Mohammad Anisur Rahman, however, expressed doubt about sustainability of the new AC bus as there is no initiative to increase the number of its trips.
"Under the present context, roads cannot take extra load of buses until and unless the repetition of bus services is withdrawn to increase number of trips," he told the FE.
At present, most of the bus operators manage two to three trips daily against normal seven to eight, he added.
The World Bank-funded study on route rationalisation also recommended reducing bus routes to 91 by 2016 to lessen repetition of the service and improve the number of trips by managing junctions. Instead, the RTC was blamed for increasing the number of routes to over 205 during the last two years.
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