Smart commuting a far cry

Although more than over 20 years has gone by, multiple attempts to control traffic using digital signal devices in Dhaka city have all ended in vain.

However, when it comes to government expenditure in this regard, the figure is pretty high. Some Tk 150 crore has already been spent under different projects centring automated traffic control.

Till now, the city’s massive traffic flow continues to be regulated manually by the traffic department of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Not only does manually-regulated traffic control lead to massive gridlocks in the city almost every day, but also eats up valuable time of around 20 million city dwellers causing public suffering.

Between 2002 and 2005, a total of 68 traffic lights were set up at a cost of Tk 13.6 crore under the Dhaka Urban Transport Project funded by the WB. The first two sets of traffic lights were installed at Gulshan-1 and Gulshan -2 intersections.

However, in a 2006 report, the WB mentioned that the system went out of order due to lack of maintenance.

Again in 2017, a WB report mentioned that traffic congestion in Dhaka eats up 32 lakh working hours every day with an annual economic cost of Tk 20,000 crore.

Apart from that, these gridlocks also contribute to air pollution through vehicle emissions in the city.

According to a joint report in 2020 by US-based Health Effects Institute and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Bangladesh saw a total of 173,500 deaths in 2019 due to air pollution, up from 123,000 in 2017.

Under the Clean Air and Sustainable Environment (CASE) project, that ended in March 2020, another Tk 112 crore, funded by the WB, were spent between 2010 and 2018 on repairing and installing 100 traffic lights and other intersection infrastructure. The city corporations handed the lights over to the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

In the fiscal year 2012-13, under the CASE project, the two Dhaka city corporations developed and activated the signals, adding solar panels and countdown systems, at 70 crossings and 29 new signals.

However, officials of the just concluded CASE project said the signals went out of order within a few years due to lack of maintenance.

Dhaka’s already chaotic traffic took a critical turn this time after the government opened up businesses and public transport after withdrawal of lockdowns imposed to curb the spread of Covid-19.

“Dhaka has a very unhealthy environment due to huge traffic on roads,” Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon Joint Secretary Prof Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumder.

Despite the chaos, Dhaka’s two city corporations, Dhaka Metropolitan Police, and Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority have been blaming each other for the failure to ease traffic congestions in the city, while urban planners find acute lack of coordination and accountability among the agencies concerned.

Talking to The Business Post, many city commuters said Dhaka’s traffic situation turned for the worse after several mega infrastructural development projects, including the Metrorail and Elevated Expressway, narrowed down major thoroughfares in the capital.

The narrowed roads added to the woes of Dhaka’s already chaotic manually-controlled traffic, causing more public suffering.

“Bangladesh police is now controlling Dhaka traffic ‘manually’ considering the practical situation,” said Dhaka Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner (Traffic) Md Munibur Rahman while talking to The Business Post.

He said there were no traffic lights installed at most of the intersections in the city while many of the traffic lights installed remain dysfunctional.

He added that traffic signal automation initiatives collapsed soon after its installation in 2019.

“Digital signalling is the only solution for managing any city’s traffic at the moment,” Bangladesh Institute of Planner’s General Secretary Adil Mohammad Khan told The Business Post.

Adil, also a professor for urban planning at Jahangirnagar University, also observed that the digital traffic signal system was not functional in the capital due to lack of accountability and coordination among the agencies concerned.

“Without political commitment it is not possible to ensure a functional digital traffic system even in future,” he said.

Meanwhile, remote controls, timer signal, 17 large and 14 small digital display boards were set up at key points by the city corporation authorities.

Against this backdrop, the DTCA also initiated the Dhaka Integrated Traffic Management Project, funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, in July 2015 to bring Dhaka’s four crossings — Paltan, Phulbari, Mohakhali and Gulshan-1 — under Intelligent Transportation System.

After four deadline extensions, the project was finally extended till June 2022 from the initial deadline of June 2017. The three extensions took the project cost to Tk 52.48 crore, up from the initial estimated cost of Tk 36.37 crore.

DTCA Additional Executive Director Mohammad Rabiul Alam, also the project director, said, “Dhaka WASA, city corporations and other agencies had damaged cables for installing ITS. Besides, a server computer was also stolen from its Hazaribagh office.”

The Detective Branch is now investigating the incident.

According to the DMP, around 4,000 police personnel are currently deployed only for traffic management in Dhaka city.

During visits across the city, a number of signal lights were seen damaged while few others found uprooted.

Officials said at least 28 signals have been shut, 25 removed due to various development works, 12 need maintenance, eight were out of order, four are partially active and 11 are active.

Supreme Court advocate and Road Safety Foundation Vice-President Jyotirmoy Barua said the government agencies, through many unacceptable excuses have kept the automated traffic signal system dysfunctional in the capital.

His contention was the police mainly kept it dysfunctional and controlled traffic manually, using hand gestures, to facilitate the VIPs.