Abstract:
City is just like a living organism and thc transportation system is just like the
blood circulation system of that living organism. Different motorized and nonmotorized
vehicles are seen running in streets of Dhaka City to meet the
transportation demand of the inhabitants of the city. Buses play an important role
in Dhaka City for movement. Bus trips constitute 27% of total trips by mechanized
modes and passenger-kilometer traveled by bus is about 40% of passenger
kilometer traveled by mechanized modes. Three types of buses, i.e. double-decker
buses, single-decker standard buses and minibuses under government or private
ownership are rendering different types of services e.g. local, premium, quick
services to meet various types of demand of passenger of diffcrent class of the
society.
The author considered different performance indicators like trip time, travel speed,
running time, waiting time at the stoppages, delay due to congestion, delay at
signals, average distance between stoppages, average waiting time of a passenger
at the stoppages for getting a bus, congestion in the bus, number of trips a bus can
complete per day, total distance a bus can cover everyday, number of passengerkilometer
per bus per day to study the performance of local bus service of Dhaka
City.
Considering different standards, it was revealed that local buses were taking too
long time to complete a trip in Dhaka City. Frequcntly buses touch illegal
stoppages, and waiting time at the stoppages is irregular and quite high.
Congestion and delay at signals affect somc routes tremendously. In many cases;
buses are loaded and unloaded at the middle of the roads. No fixed time schedule
for a trip and no fixed frequency were found in any of the routes. Passengers were
at the mercy of the bus crews for the journey. They identified different problems of
bus journey. According to the passengers' questionnaire survey, 60% passengers
considered the waiting time of buses at the stoppage was high, 62% considered the
congestion within the bus was high and 66% agreed to increase the fare for better
service.
It was seen that buses wait for long at the stoppages for passengers. It deteriorated
the performance of bus service. If the delay due to congestion and delay due to
waiting time at the stoppage could be reduced and waiting time at the illegal
stoppages could be saved, it would be possible to improve the bus service in the
city considerably. Then each bus will need less time to complete a trip and
passenger will need less time to wait for buses and less time for the journey, each
bus will complete more trips and will carry more passengers per day and
passengerckilometer per bus per day will be higher. If a standard of 30-second
average waiting time is fixed at the stoppages and 2 minutes at the terminals is
fixed, huge time can be saved per trip per bus; thus, less number of buses would be
needed to meet the same demand prevailing.
Buses can carry larger number of passenger using less road space. In big cities,
mass transit carries significant portion of passengers everyday. A better service of
local buses in Dhaka City with fixed frequency and timetable, introduction and
rigid application of standards and regulations will attract more travelers to use bus
service and consequently improve the transport system of the city.
