ISSN: 2455-8826 Asian Journal of Innovative Research in Science, Engineering and Technology (AJIRSET) Available online at: www.engineeringjournal.info

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Bus Network Coverage Analysis of City Along with its Service Quality

Md. Niaz Mustaqeem1*, Faiyaz Jalaluddin1, Rakibul Hassan2

1Department of Civil Engineering, Stamford University Bangladesh, Bangladesh. 2Department of Civil Engineering, Presidency University, Bangladesh.

Abstract

Bus is the only mode of mass transit available in Dhaka. It carries about 1.9 million passengers in an average working day out of total about 21 million trips. Share of bus has increased from 10 to 30 percent for all types of trips. There are 11,060 buses and 8,583 mini buses plying on roads which represent only about 3% of total motorized traffic. Out of 160 bus routes 140 routes are operational of which 88% of the routes are being operated by 137 bus companies. The bus routes are delineated in the north-south direction and are restricted to about 200 kilometers only. These routes were never the result of any assessment of demand or proper planning in respect to service optimization and thus resulted in high density route overlapping, undesirable route length and uneven competition among bus companies and not meeting passenger trip patterns. Present bus services lack both standard service as well as door to door service. Reorganization of the bus routes, improvement of bus service quality that will draw consumer’s attention, lane separation for MV and NMV's, introduction of BRT and MRT are some of the important measures that need to be initiated in this regard.

Keywords: Bus network, Dhaka City, Public transport, Route restructuring, Service quality. Introduction Dhaka is one of the only seven cities in the developing countries [3]. Due to the growing world which has experienced urban mobility, use of private transport has been population growth higher than 2.4% in increasing and ultimately, it has been a between 1975 to 2005 [1]. It has developed matter of great concern regarding its into the capital of a nation from a mere implications in terms of congestion, pollution provincial capital since the birth of and social impact. To reduce this congestion Bangladesh, unfortunately in an unplanned and pollution, public transport in terms of way. It is perhaps the only city in the world mass transit is preferred over private without any well and properly planned mass transport. transit system [2]. The environment of Bus Fleet and Share in Dhaka Dhaka city transport is characterized by traffic congestion and delays, inadequate Dhaka suffers from critical and deteriorated traffic management, unaffordable and traffic congestion, despite low level of inaccessible for majority of the people, high motorization, largely due to the absolute accident rates and increasing air pollution lack of roads, deficient road network problems etc. However, the major problem to configuration and inefficient traffic this situation seems to be the operational management. Existing public transport weakness of the present resources. In system, bus transit operations in particular general, Rapid growth, low incomes, and is characterized as far short of the desirable extreme inequality are among the mobility needs of the people in terms of fundamental reasons of transport problems reliability, comfort, speed and safety. In in Dhaka, similar to every other megacity of Dhaka, buses are generally considered

Md. Niaz Mustaqeem et. al.| June 2016 | Vol.1 | Issue 5|01-08 1 Available online at: www.engineeringjournal.info unreliable and time consuming to reach the destination [4]. Vehicular Growth Bangladesh has been experiencing rapid vehicular growth in recent years. It has also been observed that the number of motorized vehicle is growing rapidly. Around 300 new vehicles are coming to road every day. In Bangladesh the total number of registered motorized vehicles has become 17,51,834 in June, 2012 increasing from 7,03,215 in 2003 (more than 200% increase in less than 9 Figure 2: Percent Growth of buses and years). But astonishing fact is, more than minibuses in Dhaka [4] 40% of all registered vehicles are in Dhaka Modal Share (total 17, 51,834 in Bangladesh) [5]. The The prevailing situation is even worse when trend of motor vehicle growth is shown in taken into account the fact that, this Fig. 1 below. inadequate road space is shared by both

motorized and non-motorized traffic (heterogeneous traffic mix) and vehicles with varying characteristics (e.g. three-wheelers, human haulers, pickups, vans etc.). On an average day 21 million trips are taking place in Dhaka metropolitan area [6]. Despite the rapid growth of motorized traffic in Dhaka, non-motorized transport still remains the dominant mode for the city dwellers who are mostly middle and low income groups. More than 40% of the city trips (Table 1) are served by walking and rickshaw [7]. The varied traffic mix and heavy concentration of non-motorized vehicles with almost 70% of

Figure 1: Motorized vehicle growing trend the available road space is occupied by in Dhaka [4] rickshaws and their dominance is expected continue in the foreseeable future. Relative Growth of Bus & Minibus in Currently, rickshaw movements are however Dhaka restricted in some major roads. Despite the demand for public transport service has increased considerably, public Table: 1. Modal share in metro Dhaka transport such as bus and minibuses have Mode Percentage of Share DITS DUTP JBIC STP JICA not grown substantially. There are 11,060 (1994) (1997) Study (2005) Study buses and 8,583 minibuses registered (as of (1999) (2009) June, 2012) which represent only about 3% Walk 60.1 62.82 62.05 14.0 19.09 Rickshaw 20.1 20.04 13.28 34.0 38.19 (buses and minibuses combined) of total Bus 12.8* 10.42* 10.22 44.0* 29.83 motorized traffic. Though the number of Passenger 7.0** 6.72** 3.97 8.0** 4.30 large buses remained nearly constant, the Car Others 4.65 2.86 percentage share of bus fleet (buses and Total 100 100 100 100 100 minibuses combined) has been in fact * Transit declining day by day due to decrease in ** Motorized (Non Transit) number of minibuses. This has been represented in Fig. 2. This fact has resulted The modal distribution by income groups is in further congestion of the roads and shown in Table 2. It shows that trips on foot worsening air pollution, noise, and safety is made by the low income group (73%) while problems. most of the rickshaw trips are made by the

Md. Niaz Mustaqeem et. al.| June 2016 | Vol.1 | Issue 5|01-08 2 Available online at: www.engineeringjournal.info middle income group (59%). The significance From the table, it is clear that the low of walk and rickshaw trips is clearly evident income group is responsible for the lion’s as they relate to 97% of the city dwellers. share of trips on foot (73%) while most of the The following Table 2 shows modal rickshaw trips are made by the middle distribution (in terms of trips) by income income group (59%). groups.

Table: 2: Modal share of trips with respect to income groups Income Group Proportion of Income Modal Share Groups (%) Walk Rickshaw Transit Motorized (Non-transit) Low (<12,500 Tk.) 48 73 38 41 14 Medium (12,500-55,000 Tk.) 49 26 59 56 66 High (>55,000 Tk.) 3 1 3 3 20 Total 100 100 100 100 100

Extent of Road Network In an ideal city, 25% of the surface area should be used for constructing roads and

lanes, but Dhaka has only 8% [8].

Table: 3. Road network within Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) area Type of Road Definition Length (km) Percentage (%) Minimum of 31m wide, 6 lanes of 3.25m, Primary 68.45 5.29 footpath and median Minimum of 25.5 m wide, 4 lanes of 25m, 2 NMV Secondary 108.20 8.37 lanes of 2m wide, footpath and median Minimum of 22 m wide, 2 lanes of 3.25m each, 2 Connector 221.35 17.12 NMV lanes of 2m each, footpath and median Minimum of 8.75 m wide, two lanes of 1.36m and Local 573.75 44.37 footpath (1.5m each way) Narrow Minimum of 4.5 m wide with two lanes of 1.36m 321.27 24.85 Total 1293.02 100

Moreover, like most of the developing cities, urban bus service mostly minibuses. Within Dhaka’s road network hierarchy is poorly the city area, these sub urban buses pick defined, with very limited number of arterial and drop passenger on the city road and and main roads. It can be observed that by illegally operates up to the city centre. considering connector roads suitable for bus Therefore, within the city areas these sub flow, there is around 30% road available for urban buses operate as city buses. bus services, which is only about 400 km (Table 3). Moreover, this road space is also Most of the main arterial roads of Dhaka are shared by NMTs and as a result for absence towards north-south and there are serious of any bus priority measures, buses often deficiencies of roads from east to west. As a come second when they compete for road result, most of the bus routes of Dhaka City space with other modes. are also north-south. In fact, just 5 out of the 152 bus routes run east-west. Areas close to Status of the Present Bus Network the riverside, which were the first to be Bus Route Layout and Distribution developed, such as Old Dhaka and Kamrangirchar, have almost no bus supply As per the records of the Bangladesh Road due to the urban characteristics. High Transport Authority (BRTA), the number of density of buildings is found without bus routes in Dhaka is 160. These routes go following any specific pattern amongst mainly through high capacity arteries due to narrow streets. In general, lack of bus routes the functional characteristics of the road is found either in dense area with narrow network. Only 12.5% of the entire road streets or in areas with water bodies or network is a motorway or main street, without road connections. The distribution of suitable for bus services [9].There is a routes by length is shown in Table 4. It number of satellite townships like Savar, shows that nearly 70% of the route length is Narayanganj, Gazipur, Narsingdi, Demra within 11 to 30 km. etc. which are connected to Dhaka by sub

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Table: 4. Distribution of routes by length mobility by bus (79% in DCC) and those Route Length Percentage Number of Routes inside Gazipur district only represent 5.3%. (km) (%) <10 1 0.97 The rest are flows between both areas. 11-20 39 37.86 According to the public transport model 21-30 31 30.10 zoning (168 zones) and 4.5% of those are 31-40 17 16.50 41-50 5 4.85 intrazonal, with the origin and destination 51-60 7 6.80 inside the same zone. One third of the total >71 3 2.91 trip production by bus is concentrated in Total 103 100.00 Mirpur, Pallabi, Kafrul, Dhanmondi and Bus Trip Production Mohammadpur. Ramna itself is the highest trip producer, generating and attracting 12% The total number of trips by bus on an of the total trips followed by Motijheel with average working day is 70, 84,159. Mobility 9% of total production. within DMA represents 89% of the total

Figure 3: Bus trip production on an average working day. Figure 4: Daily bus flows between zones

From Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 it is found that 75% of total bus trip production is generated and The average length of trips by bus is 5.8 km. attracted within Central Dhaka (zone 3, 4, 5 Flows over 10,000 daily trips have an and 6). Gazipur and Uttara produce 15% of average trip length of 3.9 km and represent the total bus trip production in the study 4% of the total intrazonal trips, and flows area and 45% of which stay within these from 5,000 to 10,000 have an average trip zones (zone 1 and 2). Data regarding length of 5.1 km and represent 9.1% of total excessive route overlapping is presented in intrazonal trips (Fig. 5). Longer trips are Table 5. those with trip flows less than 1,000 daily trips (average length of 7.6 km). Intrazonal Table: 5. Top Seven locations of trips by bus represent 4.5% of the total overlapping routes number of trips, as bus is used mainly for Location Number of Routes overlapping long trips between zones. The zones with the Paltan 56 highest percentages of intrazonal trips GPO 50 Motijheel 59 (>6.5%) are generally big zones or peripheral Shahbagh 48 zones, especially in Gazipur Upazilla, as the Press Club 43 figure below indicates. Gulistan 41 Airport 36

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Table 6: Distribution of bus companies by fleet size the study area (DMA and Gazipur Upazilla), Fleet Number of Companies Percentage (%) Size considering the coverage as the area and 1-10 2 2.67 population within a buffer of 400 m of the 11-20 21 28.00 transport network (population is that of 21-30 31 41.33 31-50 14 18.67 2009). It covers areas with high population 51-70 4 5.33 density, being the average density of the 71-99 1 1.33 areas covered 54,011 inhabitants per km2 100-150 1 1.33 (Fig. 6). >150 1 1.33 Total 75 100.00

As presented in Table 6, most of the bus companies in Dhaka are small to medium size (roughly 70% of them have 11 to 30 buses). However, all buses of a company may not be owned by a single person, rather a good number of individuals own one or more buses, make a group, form and run a bus company. So, even these companies’ buses ply on the roads like individually owned buses.

Figure 6: Bus network coverage (band widths of 400m) Existing Bus Service Scenario Bus Frequency Dhaka has five major bus routes terminating/originating locations which can be seen in the table below. These routes are mainly part of north south corridors, from Gazipur, Savar, Naraynganj, Tongi, Uttara and Mirpur sub urban areas. Most of these Figure 5: Bus trip production on an average working day: Percentage of intrazonal trips routes have terminated at the city centers and some of them extended up to the south The current bus network system covers eastern fringe of the city. 5,325,441 inhabitants and 141.43 sq.km of

Table 7: Key statistics of bus minibuses routes Origin/Destination locations Number of Number of Number of Total Routes Buses Minibuses Mirpur, Pallabi, Gabtoli, Kulsi 38 537 723 1,136 Mohammadpur, Shaymoli, Adabar, 13 252 182 434 Manikganj, Dhamrai, Hemayetpur, Savar, EPZ, Chandra, 30 659 528 1,187 Konabari, Kaliakur Joydebpur, Boardbazar, Kapashia, Tongi, Kaliganj, 36 579 1,219 1,798 Ashulia, Kuril, Gulshan, Naraynganj, Meghnaghat, Sonargaon, Ghorashal, 16 178 265 443 Katchpur Bridge, Adamjee

As displayed in the following figure, bus streets there are 2.15 bus/min and in local routes are highly concentrated in high streets 0.67 bus/min on average. capacity arteries. The average bus supply in a motorway link is 2,384 According to these estimates, bus supply in buses/day/direction, which means that an average working day reaches 9,500 there are 2.5 buses every minute. In main bus/day/direction in some roads in DMA

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(which means almost 10 buses per minute their tickets inside the bus. Only 6 seats in in one direction across that road section), each bus have been reserved for the female although doesn’t exceed 1,150 passengers but nothing such for disabled bus/day/direction outside its boundaries. In people or senior citizens [11]. the north, N3 from Gazipur to Tongi offers 1,143 bus/day/direction and 4,497 bus/day The condition of the buses plying in Dhaka /direction from Tongi to Uttara. There are city is not good. This is because the majority 908 bus/day/direction along N302 and 276 of bus fleet is very old and the maintenance bus/day/direction along R301. In south-east is almost absent or very poor. The physical of DMA, there are 174 daily expeditions conditions of the buses are not satisfactory that run along and 192 along . and 25% of the buses are in worse condition (Fig. 7). Despite the poor bus condition users In DMA, N3 (Airport Rd) reaches values of are not feeling it because their main concern 6,700 bus/h/direction between N501 and is getting a seat or room inside the bus Kuril, and in up to 7,000 irrespective to its overall condition. Near bus/day/direction. The highest values are about 38% of buses have poor interior found in Dhaka city centre, with 9,500 condition [12]. bus/day/direction in Nilkhet road, as most of the bus routes have their origin and Although BRTC has started with the banner destination in Paltan or they cross the city of “Service is our motto: Comfort is our center. Bus supply is also high along N1 commitment”, it cannot fulfill any of their with 6,000 bus/ hr/ direction [9]. objectives. With few exceptions, the bus owners or operators, including government Service Quality owned BRTC buses, in Dhaka City do not Service quality is a measure of how well the pay adequate attention to passengers’ services delivered to the customers matches comfort [13]. Internal facilities, such as their expectations, while a firm delivering lights and fans, are frequently out of order quality means conforming to customer or in need of repair. Many of these buses do expectations on a consistent basis [10]. Bus not have fans and lights at all. Other services available in Dhaka city can be amenities, such as lighting during night, categorized in two groups: counter bus airflow and ventilation are not constantly service and local bus service. Counter bus monitored to ensure a desirable passenger service has specified stoppages for boarding experience. Basic passenger requirements, and alighting of passengers and the tickets like comfortable seats and windows for are sold at the counter of those stoppages. airflow, also do not measure up to the For such buses, passengers have to purchase standards. their tickets from the bus counters just before boarding into bus. A very small There are many concerns related to the number of counter buses are air-conditioned. current bus service as per the information In contrast, local bus service has no specified and the feedback obtained by different stoppage (stop anywhere on the way for studies and surveys, among them are: boarding and alighting passengers) and passengers pay the fair to the bus conductor  Long waiting time on bus (after boarding). Buses of the both  Non availability of a seat and over- types often remain heavily over-crowded; crowding mostly because of a gap between demand  Inefficient bus fare and ticketing system and supply. However, there are a few  Unfavorable condition inside the bus seating service buses operating in certain  Long delay time limited routes which allow boarding  Physical harassments of the female passengers only if there is an empty seat passengers available for the person. These buses also  Misbehavior of the bus staff boarding and alighting passengers at the  location of the bus station and accessibility specified stops (sometimes allow passengers  Poor facilities of the bus stops to alight at any place where the passengers  Non availability of information about bus want to), and the passengers have to pay for services

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Despite the crucial function of public buses buses as solution in most cases. But plying in developing countries, their roles increasing the number of buses is not only are disrupted for different reasons. the solution of present problem of Dhaka Transportation system of Dhaka city is city. Bus service quality has to be improved under huge challenge of managing growing to meet the expectation of customers which number of private cars and non-motorized can influence them to use public transport vehicles. Traffic congestion had become an (Bus) than private cars. everyday scenario of this city. Policy maker consider increasing the number of public

Figure 7: Overcrowding condition

passengers while waiting at bus stoppage or Concluding Remarks boarding and alighting buses, making all buses There is an ever increasing urgency of mitigating as sitting service and reserve few seats for the the complex transport problems in Dhaka. Poor disabled, etc could bring better results for bus traffic management, lack of road spaces and service. Provision of bus-only lane, increasing the fragmented bus network resulted in severe traffic number of bus fleet, maintaining a specified time congestion, massive delays, increased fuel schedule and publicize the information widely to wastage and resource losses. Certainly Dhaka make it available for the passengers, adjusting city needs better public transportation system the fare rate rationale to the service level, e.g. BRT and MRT and reorganization of bus ensuring better air circulation inside the vehicle, network by eliminating the overlapping routes. reducing the delay time in station, etc. Thus, the Few minor initiatives in bus service such as overall condition of the existing bus network and advanced ticketing system, discipline among the its coverage as well as the aspects of service quality is briefly discussed here.

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