Research on transportation and traffic system of Bangladesh

In developing countries like Bangladesh, public transport is poorly maintained, overloaded with passengers most of the time, and the government's limitations on service quality are constrained. As a result, the public transit infrastructure is insufficient to satisfy the demand for mobility with adequate capacity. In this context, paratransit plays a crucial role in the transport system of the country. Therefore, the paper aims to assess the quality of paratransit services in the Mymensingh City of Bangladesh from users. The authors performed a field survey questionnaire on twenty significant paratransit services and the overall quality of paratransit services for evaluation. The study found features such as paratransit speed, paratransit accessibility, drivers' efficiency, travel time for paratransit in holidays, travel-ticket system, integration of support modes, travel costs, operating costs relative to public transport, and protection of goods as satisfactory from the survey. On the contrary, features such as seat quality for comfort, paratransit health, ease of entry-exit, riding safety, seating arrangements, mobility versatility, long-distance performance, paratransit noise, and travel time on office days were not satisfactory. The study recommends the paratransit authority to improve the not adequate service components in the region.

For transport planning and policy-making, visualising the relationship among attributes; gender, education, occupation, age with travel pattern and mode choice is important. Household Interview Survey (HIS) is one of the major inputs in transport study which contains information about travel and demographic characteristics. From the analysis of 28,235 households in Dhaka city, this study represents the social demographic characteristic of Dhaka city based on the household survey. It was found that 89.79% of dwellers make double trips in a day and the trip rate per trip maker is 2.16, where 14% of total trips are generated at morning peak time between 7 to 8 am. The bus is the most preferable mode share and its contribution is about 35%. The scenario changed in a multimodal trip case and walking was the domination mode share with about 45% of total trips. Vehicle ownership had a vital rule in particular mode choice, especially in car and motorcycle household ownership case. Significant impact on travel patterns and mode choice criteria was found with gender, education, occupation, age, household income, trip purpose and time and vehicle ownership, which can help to formulate the strategic plan to solve the transport-related problem in Dhaka.

The ride-sharing profile has gotten a decision to the horde of Dhaka City in the transportation field because of its broadened habits in transport offices. Before developing ride-sharing, broad issues like traffic blockage, misconduct of the conductors, and tolls' vexation were exceptionally regular in the city's common travel framework. The ride-sharing platform brings mollification in the city's transportation part through the possible relief of such basic practices. The paper aims to grant an itemized vision regarding the ride-offering plan in Dhaka City to how this vehicle framework executes various transportation issues, a couple of downsides, and some innovation-based achievements recommended by the researchers rising bothers of this new vehicle framework. The study also deals with the measures to make the ride-sharing scheme supportable in the future and includes the improvement of some application-based plans like ride-sharing. There is a gigantic extent of study for future researchers concerning the ride-sharing profile in Dhaka City.

These slides represent the finding of the study of capacity loss at different Rajshahi city roads as showcased in the mentioned conference. Full article is also available.

To make public transportation more efficient and user-friendly it is important to reveal the important factor affecting their mode choice decision and explain the trade-offs which they usually make while choosing the mode of transportation. Without addressing this aspect, there is every possibility of failure of the new strategies to be taken. In this study, mode choice behavior and value of time of Dhaka city dwellers are calculated considering income level, trip purpose and trip length using RP and SP data. In mode choice analysis, we consider a total of ten modes among those eight modes are already existing and other two modes (MRT and BRT) are up-coming. The multinomial logit model is used for mode choice analysis and the binary logit model is used for the value of time estimation. Study indicates that people prefer to ride newly build MRT and BRT. Change of mode choice is also found with the change of trip purpose, trip length and income level of trip makers. Waiting time shows always higher value than in-vehicle time.

Rajshahi, the 4 th largest metropolitan city of Bangladesh have such roadway networks which were designed decades ago and nowadays they are facing problems in housing the increasing amount of traffic. As a result, the mobility of the traffic system has been hampered causing congestion and slower movement of vehicles. For this, inability to use the full capacity of roads is considered to be the main matter of concern. The study investigated the main reasons behind capacity loss on major city roads. To do, seven busiest roads of Rajshahi city were chosen. Then, a survey was carried out to identify the key factors which play lead role in reducing overall capacity. Through the survey some reasons like; on-street parking(37.23%), parking near intersections(30.5%), existence of shops on roads(3.61%), periodic maintenance(16.2%), lack of facilities of waste disposal(2.8%) were mostly found prominent. Overall, the study has shown some potential findings regarding major city road capacity conditions.

Rajshahi city is the one of the largest cities in Bangladesh. It is at 280 km distances from capital city, Dhaka. The transportation system of this city is average oriented but the maintenances and present condition results in worst condition. This city becomes a city where 56 out of 56 traffic signals are damaged. For this paper, 186.64 kilometer (km) roadway and 14.18 km drainage system of entire Rajshahi City Corporation was studied. Detailed field surveys are conducted on every intersection of this city and it is observed that significant number of physical deficiencies are remained. In transportation system, 40% of total roadway are damaged with different types of damages like as peeled off road, broken shoulder, potholes etc. In traffic signal system, the placement of signal is wrong at 46% intersections. At 19% approaches signals are not visible due to obstructions. Significant numbers of operational deficiencies are also observed at most of the intersections and approaches. Besides, illegal parking of vehicles, illegal footpath taking, shoulder using for garbage, violation of traffic rules and willing driven of drivers are found at an acute percentage rate here. For why, traffic congestion and road accidents becomes a common incidents in this busy city.

In world nearly 1.3 million people die in road accident each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day. Bangladesh has one of the highest fatality rate in road accidents in the world which causes untold suffering and misery to the members of the victim's family. Many studies have shown that drivers are responsible for most of the accidents. The aim of this paper is to identify the causes of road accidents and accidents trend due to driving related problems in Bangladesh. For this study 15 years (1998-2013) accident data have been collected from Accident Research Center(ARC), BUET and detail diagnosis have been done on these available data. In this analysis driver's characteristics and some factors that affect safe driving & causes accidents were identified so that adequate procedures can be taken to reduce such as fatal accidents. The current condition of existing facilities of safe driving and some suggestion to reduce accidents rate is also discussed in this research. From this paper it is found that by proper licensing & training of drivers, improving existing road facilities, regularly checking fitness of the vehicles, introducing traffic islands at intersections, introducing enforcement to control traffic and preventing alcohol use of driver's will reduce accidents rate.

Due to the high growth rate of urbanization in developing countries like Bangladesh leads to increase in vehicular traffic. Travel demand models are useful in managing the increased travel demand. So, Trip generation step is essential in planning of transportation facilities for Dhaka the capital of Bangladesh. In this study, the trip attraction rates of the shopping centers at Uttara Road, Uttara area of Dhaka are estimated by using trip rate analysis method. As part of this study, a total of six shopping centers are surveyed, for which the number of vehicles (car) and persons entering the shopping center during peak hour for every 15 minutes time interval are counted. The surveyed data deals with the relationship of trip attraction rates of the shopping center as a whole. Various physical features of the shopping centers are considered of this study, e.g total parking spaces, gross floor area, and the number of stores in the shopping center. This study will help for estimating the traffic volume of newly constructed shopping centers which has remarkable impact on the geometric design of roadways in the contiguous area.