Study of the performance of bus transport services in some selected routes of Dhaka city

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.