City's traffic system in chaos
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
THE traffic regulators of this city of over 12 million people are treating its residents in a sadistic manner. The traffic wing of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) launched its latest system of traffic management with signalling lights -- which it should have done long ago -- just before the Eid-ul-Azha. In the first place, the timing was a poor one because sudden changes in traffic regulation at a time of the year when people tend to travel in great numbers on the occasion of the Eid, created hazards for the unaccustomed people. The automatic signalling system was suddenly imposed without repairing and making the signalling lights fully functional at many places. Besides, the lights that were operable were not properly synchronised. This led to a chaos in the system with the traffic policemen resorting to their old and unchanged behaviour of stopping traffic movement for irrationally long periods of time where the lights were not working, while quick movements of traffic taking place where the automatic devices functioned. This created a mess that increased people's suffering in an unprecedented manner before the Eid.
It was pledged by the DMP that they would take corrective actions and put things in order. The synchronisation of the signalling lights was more or less carried out after the Eid. This gave some relief to the commuters for a while. But for the last one month or so the earlier hodge-podge appears to have returned. Even the signalling lights that were repaired have gone out of order in some places and no move is visible to make them functional again. Traffic policemen are seen resuming their manual signalling, keeping traffic immobile for unusually long stretches of time. In some places -- and this is bizarre -- the signalling lights are found changing at unusually long intervals which robs them of their usefulness. Furthermore, the traffic policemen are found prone to starting cases nowadays in greater number against the travelling people for justified and, in many instances, unjustified grounds of violation of rules when the former themselves would be guilty, if charged, for not enforcing the rules they themselves had promulgated. It was announced before the Eid that different categories of vehicles would have to travel in paths specified for them on the roads. Nobody is seen enforcing this rule but some policemen are seen stopping the violators of the rule all of a sudden and penalising them. This is no way of either restraining the violators or educating them. The rule needs to be enforced all the time to keep the people habituated to obeying it.
It seems as if the DMP's traffic wing is playing a joke on the people. In the name of better traffic regulation, they are only contributing to making the conditions worse. Who will answer why they chose to introduce a system without fine tuning it in the first place? After introducing it, why are they not addressing the factors which are not allowing the benefits of the change to be delivered?
The people of Dhaka are in great agony and the economy is suffering huge losses every day from the very bad traffic management which seems to be more due to man-made factors than the familiar excuses of too many vehicles, insufficient roads, etc. The desired improvement in traffic movement calls for making the traffic managers themselves truly dedicated to doing their jobs with sincerity and carrying out of supportive activities such as mending the signalling lights and synchronising them at the fastest.
It was pledged by the DMP that they would take corrective actions and put things in order. The synchronisation of the signalling lights was more or less carried out after the Eid. This gave some relief to the commuters for a while. But for the last one month or so the earlier hodge-podge appears to have returned. Even the signalling lights that were repaired have gone out of order in some places and no move is visible to make them functional again. Traffic policemen are seen resuming their manual signalling, keeping traffic immobile for unusually long stretches of time. In some places -- and this is bizarre -- the signalling lights are found changing at unusually long intervals which robs them of their usefulness. Furthermore, the traffic policemen are found prone to starting cases nowadays in greater number against the travelling people for justified and, in many instances, unjustified grounds of violation of rules when the former themselves would be guilty, if charged, for not enforcing the rules they themselves had promulgated. It was announced before the Eid that different categories of vehicles would have to travel in paths specified for them on the roads. Nobody is seen enforcing this rule but some policemen are seen stopping the violators of the rule all of a sudden and penalising them. This is no way of either restraining the violators or educating them. The rule needs to be enforced all the time to keep the people habituated to obeying it.
It seems as if the DMP's traffic wing is playing a joke on the people. In the name of better traffic regulation, they are only contributing to making the conditions worse. Who will answer why they chose to introduce a system without fine tuning it in the first place? After introducing it, why are they not addressing the factors which are not allowing the benefits of the change to be delivered?
The people of Dhaka are in great agony and the economy is suffering huge losses every day from the very bad traffic management which seems to be more due to man-made factors than the familiar excuses of too many vehicles, insufficient roads, etc. The desired improvement in traffic movement calls for making the traffic managers themselves truly dedicated to doing their jobs with sincerity and carrying out of supportive activities such as mending the signalling lights and synchronising them at the fastest.