Traffic congestions eat up Tk 96b extra fuel of city vehicles: study
Saturday, 19 September 2009
Munima Sultana
Motor vehicles burn extra fuels worth Tk 96 billion a year in traffic jams in the city's busy arteries, a Roads and Highways Division study said.
The amount is a quarter of the country's total fuel import in the 2008-9 fiscal year, one-third of Bangladesh's annual development expenditure and almost equivalent to the total foreign aid that Dhaka receives every year.
The study done by an RHD engineer found that owners spend Tk 18.67 billion a year on servicing their cars and vehicles as jams reduce automobile life-span and turn them into clunkers much before their natural death.
The study titled "traffic congestion in Dhaka-city: possible way-out" is the most wide-ranging by the RHD and it was commissioned to find out the economic impact of jams in the country's gross domestic product.
Between Eight O'clock in the morning and Eight O'clock in the night a car, a bus or a CNG autorickshaw lose 7.50 hours out of 12 hours in traffic jam everyday, the study says.
Sontosh Kumar Roy, an executive engineer of RHD who conducted the study, said the economic impact of traffic jams should be far worse than the research has come up with.
"The loss of time, vehicular life span and fuels is far higher than our estimates, as we have mainly used conservative figures," Roy who did the study on four main arteries in the capital in 2008.
"It, however, gives a clear picture of how much money we are bleeding unnecessarily every year and how jams are eroding our economic competitiveness," he said.
Every day man-hour loss is estimated at a minimum Tk 7.87 million, based on average per hour income of 21,000 passengers of private cars, buses and autorickshaws, he said.
Due to narrow roads and frequent traffic interruptions on an average 2500 vehicles can run 15km stretch of road per hour in Dhaka --- one of the slowest in Asia, according to the study.
It says in the single way, light to medium vehicles occupy 65 per cent of the road while buses and trucks use 20 per cent and CNG auto-rickshaws 15 percent.
The RHD engineer said the study has also demystified some myths about the causes of jams.
"There are some popular conceptions that removing slow driven vehicles and railway crossings, banning roadside parking and increasing number of buses could help improve traffic congestion," he said.
"But our study has shown that that these are wrong concepts to improve the city's traffic system," he added.
The RHD engineer suggested construction of series overpasses on the four-lane road so that the motor vehicles can easily pass frequent signals and intersections --- a key cause of jams in the city.
During the super peak hour, the study found that in the five minutes interval on signal, some 600 vehicles can move with a speed of 40 kph (kilometer per hour) but a 10-minute waiting at a signal point can create congestion of 1200 vehicles.
Motor vehicles burn extra fuels worth Tk 96 billion a year in traffic jams in the city's busy arteries, a Roads and Highways Division study said.
The amount is a quarter of the country's total fuel import in the 2008-9 fiscal year, one-third of Bangladesh's annual development expenditure and almost equivalent to the total foreign aid that Dhaka receives every year.
The study done by an RHD engineer found that owners spend Tk 18.67 billion a year on servicing their cars and vehicles as jams reduce automobile life-span and turn them into clunkers much before their natural death.
The study titled "traffic congestion in Dhaka-city: possible way-out" is the most wide-ranging by the RHD and it was commissioned to find out the economic impact of jams in the country's gross domestic product.
Between Eight O'clock in the morning and Eight O'clock in the night a car, a bus or a CNG autorickshaw lose 7.50 hours out of 12 hours in traffic jam everyday, the study says.
Sontosh Kumar Roy, an executive engineer of RHD who conducted the study, said the economic impact of traffic jams should be far worse than the research has come up with.
"The loss of time, vehicular life span and fuels is far higher than our estimates, as we have mainly used conservative figures," Roy who did the study on four main arteries in the capital in 2008.
"It, however, gives a clear picture of how much money we are bleeding unnecessarily every year and how jams are eroding our economic competitiveness," he said.
Every day man-hour loss is estimated at a minimum Tk 7.87 million, based on average per hour income of 21,000 passengers of private cars, buses and autorickshaws, he said.
Due to narrow roads and frequent traffic interruptions on an average 2500 vehicles can run 15km stretch of road per hour in Dhaka --- one of the slowest in Asia, according to the study.
It says in the single way, light to medium vehicles occupy 65 per cent of the road while buses and trucks use 20 per cent and CNG auto-rickshaws 15 percent.
The RHD engineer said the study has also demystified some myths about the causes of jams.
"There are some popular conceptions that removing slow driven vehicles and railway crossings, banning roadside parking and increasing number of buses could help improve traffic congestion," he said.
"But our study has shown that that these are wrong concepts to improve the city's traffic system," he added.
The RHD engineer suggested construction of series overpasses on the four-lane road so that the motor vehicles can easily pass frequent signals and intersections --- a key cause of jams in the city.
During the super peak hour, the study found that in the five minutes interval on signal, some 600 vehicles can move with a speed of 40 kph (kilometer per hour) but a 10-minute waiting at a signal point can create congestion of 1200 vehicles.