Most bus owners of city for forming single co
Friday, 27 November 2009
Munima Sultana
Being tired of losing trips and profits in traffic jam, the city's majority bus owners have agreed to run their vehicles under a single company and requested the government to help them merge through a guideline.
Although the bus owners blamed private cars and rickshaws for aggravating traffic jam, they, however, felt the need to run business unitedly to stop overtaking and competition among themselves as these are important to bring discipline on the streets.
The bus operators said they lose three to four trips per day against their need of at least 10 trips to earn profit.
They said they cannot have the scheduled trips as thousands of private cars and several millions of rickshaws block their ways to run smoothly.
"We every now and then miss the green signal as private cars and slow-driven rickshaws block our ways. So it is not always possible for us to follow signal lights," said one of the bus operators.
The bus owners also sought government's cooperation to remove some other problems existing in the transport sector in connection with licence, import of vehicles, mobile court harassment, police requisition and vehicles fitness.
The bus owners including those from City Bus, Rajdhani, Monjil, Duldul, Hanif, Destiny shared their views with Dhaka Transport Coordination Board (DTCB) and requested government's cooperation in this regard.
Meanwhile DTCB officials said, during the meeting the bus operators were very interested to form big companies as they were also the sufferers of the severe traffic jam.
The officials said as the city has already been filled up with hundreds of buses under different small companies, there is no alternative to forming five to six companies allowing them to run exclusively in one route each.
About 50 companies run more than 6,000 buses in the city of which more than 1,200 people have ownership.
"It is even found that there are three to four people having ownership of a single bus," said Dr SM Salehuddin, additional executive director of DTCB.
He observed that existing myriad buses could be brought under five to six big companies to run on different routes but added that the total number could be finalised through discussion.
Dr Salehuddin said the DTCB is trying to convince the bus operators to come under a single company as per the guideline on the Strategic Transport Plan.
Despite the agreement on merging together, bus operators however brought some technical issues seeking the government cooperation to bring uniformity in the transport service, he said.
Being tired of losing trips and profits in traffic jam, the city's majority bus owners have agreed to run their vehicles under a single company and requested the government to help them merge through a guideline.
Although the bus owners blamed private cars and rickshaws for aggravating traffic jam, they, however, felt the need to run business unitedly to stop overtaking and competition among themselves as these are important to bring discipline on the streets.
The bus operators said they lose three to four trips per day against their need of at least 10 trips to earn profit.
They said they cannot have the scheduled trips as thousands of private cars and several millions of rickshaws block their ways to run smoothly.
"We every now and then miss the green signal as private cars and slow-driven rickshaws block our ways. So it is not always possible for us to follow signal lights," said one of the bus operators.
The bus owners also sought government's cooperation to remove some other problems existing in the transport sector in connection with licence, import of vehicles, mobile court harassment, police requisition and vehicles fitness.
The bus owners including those from City Bus, Rajdhani, Monjil, Duldul, Hanif, Destiny shared their views with Dhaka Transport Coordination Board (DTCB) and requested government's cooperation in this regard.
Meanwhile DTCB officials said, during the meeting the bus operators were very interested to form big companies as they were also the sufferers of the severe traffic jam.
The officials said as the city has already been filled up with hundreds of buses under different small companies, there is no alternative to forming five to six companies allowing them to run exclusively in one route each.
About 50 companies run more than 6,000 buses in the city of which more than 1,200 people have ownership.
"It is even found that there are three to four people having ownership of a single bus," said Dr SM Salehuddin, additional executive director of DTCB.
He observed that existing myriad buses could be brought under five to six big companies to run on different routes but added that the total number could be finalised through discussion.
Dr Salehuddin said the DTCB is trying to convince the bus operators to come under a single company as per the guideline on the Strategic Transport Plan.
Despite the agreement on merging together, bus operators however brought some technical issues seeking the government cooperation to bring uniformity in the transport service, he said.