Articulated bus service in city likely to be delayed

The proposed articulated bus service in the capital may be delayed as the Dhaka City Corporation has yet to make any headway with the demarcation of the dedicated lane and resolve many other issues.
‘The DCC has conducted a study and found it very difficult to manage space on the existing city streets for articulated bus service,’ a senior official of the DCC told a meeting held in the communication ministry on Thursday.
Secretary of the communications ministry ASM Ali Kabir was in the chair while senior officials of the ministry, BRTC, DCC, Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Home Ministry and Dhaka Transport Coordination Board were present.
No decision was taken yet for mobilising the private operators for such kind of specialised service which, according to the officials, is not possible to initiate and run with the buses of the state-owned BRTC.
Around 5,500 buses, including 4,000 minibuses, mostly private, are now plying the city streets along with thousands of miniature public transports including rickshaw, auto-rickshaw and private cars making the traffic system of the city in a horrifying condition.
Bangladesh Road Transport Authority proposed the government in August 2008 to introduce the articulated bus service to develop an easy and comfortable communication system for city people.
It proposed private-public partnership and joint venture with any foreign companies in this sector and providing necessary credit facilitates to the entrepreneurs to import suitable buses.
BRTA proposed commissioning of the service with large- bodied buses from BTRC and private operators and later add imported buses in the fleet.
Under the system, a lane on the left side of the city road would be marked only for plying a fleet of articulated buses which would have more capacity in terms of carrying passengers and in speed.
Ali Kabir said small sized transports including rickshaws should be phased out from city roads gradually after introduction of the articulated bus service and other alternative transport facilities in the city as early as possible.
He urged all concerned not to discuss only on obstacles, rather put hand together for bringing the communication of the city in a systematic order so that the city people can move easily and feel comfort.
The communications ministry in a meeting on January 26, 2009 constituted a seven-member committee comprising officials of the BRTC, Ministry of Commerce, National Board of Revenue, Finance Division, Home Ministry and Dhaka Transport Coordination Board to submit report in this regard.
The committee headed by BRTA chairman in a meeting on February 1 decided to introduce the bus service on the Gabtali-Shahbagh-Gulistan route and engaged the Dhaka City Corporation to demarcate the dedicated lane for articulated bus by April 30

Courtesy of BSS, Dhaka/NewAgebd