Home ›› 27 Aug 2022 ›› Editorial
For residents of Dhaka, the Metro Rail will come as a blessing. For a city which has been grappling with mind numbing and soul destroying traffic jams for so long, the metro will ease travel, reduce commuting time drastically, saving people from stagnant traffic tailbacks.
However, this is a complex operation, involving technical engagements at too many levels; therefore, the highest importance is ensuring security with the least amount of disruption emanating from technical problems.
A TBP report, alluding to the rail authority, states that an automatic operation and protection system will move a dysfunctional vehicle to the next station if there is a power or mechanical failure.
Reportedly, if one train faces a glitch, other trains will stop and wait until the issue is resolved.
The metro rail implementation and operating authority, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL), says that in case of a trouble, if technicians feel further maintenance is necessary, they will do that quickly and send the train for operation. But if heavy maintenance is required, the train will be sent to the heavy maintenance shed.
Power for the trains will come from the national grid; it will stop if supply is interrupted; but the relief is that power outage at the national grid does not last beyond ten to fifteen minutes.
In addition, each station will have electricity lines plus an automatic generator.
However, to minimize the possibility of faults, there will be a series of tests carried out, which will be for 15-20 days. Following that, the Uttara-Agargaon segment of the Mass Rapid Transit line-6 (MRT-6) will be fully ready for passenger services in December.
Initially, 10 sets of trains will run at 10-minute intervals, which will gradually be reduced to three minutes and thirty seconds. Trains will run from the Fajr prayer time till midnight, according to the authorities. DMTCL is now setting up simulators, and driving tests on those will start on October 1.
From the looks of it, the Metro Rail is set to begin with a bang although with all things electric there’s nothing called full proof security. Accidents happen in the most developed nations and therefore, Bangladesh will be wise to interact with subway rails in Russia, Sweden and England to gather information about their operations plus technical and human errors, which they had to rectify and are usually not foreseen even during test runs.
In London and Moscow, the metro is underground while in Dhaka it will be over ground although the commuter rush hour behavior plus the operation pattern will be similar.
Knowledge can also be gathered and used from West Bengal, which has a reliable subway service.
There are some other issues which the authority need to address; since the trains are supposed to carry around sixty thousand people from Uttara to Motijheel in an hour will there be the need to have one emergency compartment with doctors?
Also, from another perspective, following the example in developed nations, the rails can be used as advertising a wide variety of merchandise. The same applies for the train stations too. For advertisers this will provide a new mode to highlight their products.
In developed nations, train stations also house small kiosks, restaurants and other shops. These provide essential services to waiting passengers while creating livelihoods. The authority in Bangladesh may take this into cognizance. Thirdly, the issue about the presence of law enforcers or security guards has not been fully elaborated. To forestall possible petty crime, brawls and affray, stations can house small police or Ansar outposts.
The authority may also consider launching a special Metro Rail police force either linked to the main police service or set up a force separately, linking it with the railway police.
