INTRODUCING BRT AS AN ALTERNATIVE FOR URBAN MASS TRANSPORT:A Study on a Selected Route of Dhaka Metropolitan

Abstract

Dhaka is one of the least motorized cities in the world. It is a densely populated city of an estimated 12.3 million people whereas the Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan (DMDP) forecasted a population growth of 100% for the 25 years period from 1991 to 2016.

To maintain the economic viability of this city and to keep its services feasible, an efficient transportation system is imperative.

The transportation system of Dhaka is predominantly road based and non-motorized transportation has a substantial share on it. Walking makes about 60% trip within the city. Traffic on the Dhaka urban highways is mainly rickshaw representing 56%% of all movements with auto rickshaws 6%, buses 27% and car/jeep 9%. Day by day demand of vehicle is increasing without conformity of supply. To meet up the increasing demand para transit is becoming the predominant one though the road occupancy rate of theses vehicles is quite higher that passenger occupancy rate. The consequence of this practice is obviously intolerable traffic congestion. The intolerable traffic congestion of Dhaka City has become an everyday certainty and a nightmare for the city dwellers. This is the foremost starting point of making the travel time high and thus air pollution within the city. Moreover, with the time being the buses are losing their reliability and attraction capability. The commuters are becoming less motivated to use this mode as well.

Having this situation in hand this paper has intended to come up with a new idea of BRT to solve all these problems in the study area. The strive for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is to combine the flexibility and low implementation cost of bus service with the comfort, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, land use influence and versatility of light rail transit (LRT). The goal of BRT development is to enhance ridership and reduce operating costs with increased service levels and quality. A number of case studies have been done in doing so and to examine the effectiveness of the system. Economic perspective has also been examined to make sure that the system is more viable than other.

So the fact is that we need to incorporate or introduce a new system today, tomorrow or day- after-tomorrow if we want a long-term solution of public transportation and the time has come to cope with the new stipulated system. We have to think rail but use bus.

1.1 Introduction

Transportation is an integral part of modern life. Since the beginning of human civilization it implies its own importance to the development process. It exhibits a very close relationship to the style of life, the rang and location of productive and leisure activities, and the goods and services which will be available for consumption. The movement of people is as old as humanity itself. In the ancient period human being moved from one place to another to collect food, carrying their little tenure. Such limited and primitive movement was the first introduction of new life style and development initiative. With the passage of time both the transportation and human need increase and now a day in most developed countries a number of people used to travel from and to working place, not to mention all the travel for shopping or social region. Goods are routinely shipped over a long distance to provide those material things, which are the part of the expected life standard. For decades there has been talk about ‘Urban Transportation Problem’. In public opinion surveys, people often ranks it as one of the most serious local problems [Alan Black, 1995]. Most cities of developing countries are facing with this problem, as a complex bundle of interrelated problem and Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is one of them.

The introduction of new technologies and improved system of transportation has been very closely correlated with the development of cities. While many historians and others have tended to view this as a simple cause and effect relationship, that is, the development of new transportation technology and system not only enabled but also caused changes in the society. This is surly an oversimplification. In many instances, new requirements for transport have led to development of new technologies and policies.

The technologies and system used in transportation have evolved through history. In the 19^th century, railroads were the principal means of travel for long distances. Today railroads have largely replaced by automobiles and aviation. Within cities, various forms of public transportation (raging from horse-drawn carriage to electric subway trains) were dominant in the hundred of years from 1820 to1920. Since then the automobile has become the most popular means of urban travel, but mass transit has continued to play a role. None of these happened easily or painlessly. Overcoming the barriers of distance in a speedy fashion has always required money and effort. Experts on travel behavior believe that the most people regard travel as a necessary evil to be minimized or traded off against other desires.

The transportation system of Dhaka is predominantly road based and non-motorized transportation has a substantial share. Bus and minibus are the cheapest mode available as mass transit among the public transport. Excluding buses, taxi, auto-tempo, auto rickshaw (baby taxi), and rickshaws (NMT) are available and expensive small passenger transport modes. Mixing public transport vehicles, whether buses or auto rickshaws, with other vehicle categories reduce the speed of both. Cars are impeded by buses. And buses are impeded by cars, typically moving at only about two-thirds the speed of cars because of delays in stopping and reentering the traffic flow. Given the limited density of bus networks, buses also involve longer walking times than the private car. Overall, bus journeys usually take longer than those by smaller public transport vehicles and at least twice as long as equivalent car journeys which can offer something nearer to door-to-door service. This results in a shift to small vehicles. But, paradoxically, the net result of such a shift is that total traffic volume, congestion, and average travel times are all increased.

1.2 Motivation of the Research

 Dhaka, the largest conurbation in Bangladesh, has been an attraction to landless rural poor who see it as a source of income and services they cannot find in their home villages. The rate of migration from rural areas to this city is very high. The Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan (DMDP) forecasted a population growth of 100% for the 25 years period from 1991 to 2016. And migration alone contributed around 70% of overall growth (Hassan, 1997). Dhaka as a capital city has a major role to play in era of regional and sub-regional cooperation, which are being contemplated recently. The existing transportation system may become bottleneck for the development of the city. To maintain the economic viability of this city and to keep its services feasible, an efficient transportation system is imperative. Transportation activity amounts to 11.5% of the Bangladesh Gross Domestic Product (BBS, 1995). On average, Dhaka households spend about 10.8% of their expenditure in transportation (DUTP, 1996). On a large scale, it has been shown that non-car owning households in Dhaka spend considerably more on transport in relation to both total income and disposable income compared to the car-owning households. Furthermore, the much higher rate of population increase compared to the developed cities, coupled with low level of private car ownership, make more and more people to rely on public transport continuously (Mannan and Karim 1999). Public transport services are provided by buses, minibuses, high quality bus service (Premium Bus), taxis, auto-tempos, auto rickshaws, and rickshaws. Bus, minibus are the cheapest mode available as mass transit among the public transports (Mannan and Karim, 1999). Traffic on the Dhaka Urban highways is mainly buses representing 27% of all movements with auto rickshaws (6%), rickshaws (56%) and car/jeep (9%) (Ahsan, 2003). In the city, buses are representing very small proportion of movements. In many parts of Dhaka, rickshaws and other non-motorized transport (NMT) account for 50% or more of the overall traffic flow (DITS 1994). Walk is the most popular mode of travel for the poor, followed by rickshaw. Mass transit has less contribution in moving traffic in Dhaka due to the poor level of service.

Passenger Bus Services is operated in Dhaka City by both private and public sectors. The private sector is dominating and providing a monopoly service (95% of total bus services) compared to public sector operation. Public services operated by Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) are running out of profit. A total of 56 Double Decker buses are running in Dhaka City carrying 110,000 passengers a day, substituting at least 1000 auto-rickshaws and tempos [Karim, 2001]. The number of total buses in private sector operation has estimated as of 1996 in Dhaka about 11,999 (6063 minibus and 5936 bus) [Karim, 2001]. In Dhaka around 55% of the total metropolitan area is not served by buses (Dainichi and others, 1998). The present bus services provide inefficient, unproductive, and unsafe level of services. Long waiting, delay on plying, overloading, discomfort, and long walking distance from the residence/work place to bus stops are some of the obvious problems that confront the users in their daily life. In peak hours buses very often load and unload in unspecified stops. It is a common practice in rush hours to deny access to the old, women, and children passengers, because this group has a tendency to avoid fighting during boarding and alighting.

The main aim of this research work is to appraise the buses as transit mode of three different selected nodes of Dhaka city. The research has explored the existing set up of the nodes, problems associated with the nodes and bus services as well. All these have been evaluated through peoples’ point of view. The nodes that are selected for this study purpose are: Mirpur-1 cross section, Firmgate cross-section and Gulistan cross-section.

 1.3 Goal and Objectives

 The foremost intention of this research work is to open up Bus Rapid Transit on a selected route of Dhaka City. On the way of doing this, the research will also explore the existing set up of the intersections of the route, problems associated with the route and bus services as well. To meet up the goal four objectives are being set up:

v  To weigh up the existing passenger services at major intersections of the selected route.

v  To calculate the number of trips generated from those intersections.

v  To recognize the problems allied with the defined route.

v   

v  To appraise the potentiality of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) for the study route

v.

 1.4 Research Approach

 In order to achieve such objectives, the first thing that has been done is a comprehensive literature review to have background knowledge about Bus Rapid System (BRT) and what is the implication of this system. This background knowledge has helped to develop the bus transit system for study area and also compare with the other developed nations try to achieve BRT like “Bogotá Transportation”.

For being informed and to evaluate the existing situation of public transportation in the city adequate data need to be collected from different organization, which are working in this field. These data need to focus about road condition, route problem, road safety, waiting time on the intersections for buses, walking distance from home to bus stops, travel time, travel purpose, bus fare, services quality provided by buses (sitting arrangement, space for movement etc). Data also need to be collected to measure the future demand and to identify the future need of the transportation demand in study area.

On the basis of the existing situation, future demand that has been identified, some measures has been recommended, that can afford a Bus Rapid Transit system for the city not to over come the short-term problems but to achieve the long term goals. The main problem is availability of recent data, as the complete and comprehensive study was done by DTCB (Dhaka Transport Corporation Board) in 1994. Different studies are taken after that but they are not yet updated enough.

 1.5 Scope of the study

 “The scope of transport studies throughout the world has been expressed by theorists in many different ways” (Firdos, 1980) so that the role can be identified according to the demand of mass transport users. In this regard, the present study has been limited to examining the performance standard of the buses, the actual potential demand of bus users and opening of the owners. Study on the total performance standard of buses was not possible as this work requires lot more information on commuting speed, space required by buses to run in normal standard speed the designing of buses in such a way that a minimum number of people could embark and disembark in the shortest possible time, designing the parking systems, network system and construct road to accommodate more vehicles.

In examining the user demand, all aspects of user demand could not be studied, however, the study undertaken were comprehensive enough to present the generalized picture of the overall demand and opinions of bus users. The users demand was examined by means of surveying with loading on the buses, queuing of passengers at the stoppages.

In last phase of the study the problems and opinions of the bus owners were examined because they are the main machinery for putting more buses according to the demand on the road.

1.6 Organization of the Paper

The whole paper has been organized in a systematic way. The paper has been completed within six chapters. Each chapter holds an introduction, which contains the chapter plan in short and a conclusion, which reflects the main massage of that chapter. However, in the first chapter importance of public transportation, motivation of this research, goal and objectives, scope of this research and research approach has been discussed. In the second chapter, a comprehensive literature review has been done where different issues of BRT have been focused. In the third chapter, the methodology of this research work has been described. The required data and possible source has been listed on that chapter. In the next chapter, the subsisting continuation of the study area has been analyzed from the collected data. In this chapter, different issues and challenges of present public transport system of the study area has got the main focus. In chapter five, a broad introduction of BRT has been given. Later on the discussion has been made on the issue that how BRT can solve different problems that has been identified on the study route. In this chapter a case study of BRT has also been done. In the six and last chapter, a proposal has been given to implement BRT on the study route. In this chapter the implementation responsibility has been defined specifically and the range of responsibility has been determined.