A NATIONAL daily on Tuesday reported that the automated traffic signalling system was on the verge of closure at its embryonic stage as traffic police do not want to take the responsibility for managing the risk of the project. After introducing automated signalling system in 12 inter-sections between Shahbagh and Banani in May this year, the capital city became virtually stranded and it compelled the panicked police to suspend the system. Citing the new systems penchant to increase traffic congestion; the Traffic Department of Dhaka Metropolitan Police added that they are not well equipped with trained manpower, surveillance equipment or the budget to handle the system.
The Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) took the Clean Air and Sustainable Environment (CASE) project involving Tk 555 crore from World Bank in 2009 and the two Dhaka City Corporations are implementing this. A large portion of the fund has been utilized to set up 100 automated traffic signalling panels in the city’s Shahbagh to Banani Road. Near about the end of the project, in June 2016, although it was extended upto December 2016, the implementing authorities were to hand over the execution responsibility of the system to traffic police without equipping or training them.
If the signalling system failed, people would vent their anger on the police as people could yell at the traffic police on the spot. This worried the police beforehand and made the project related organizations uncomfortable. Earlier, under the Dhaka Urban Transport Project (2004 to 2012) a total of 59 signals were setup at a cost of Tk 14 crore but not a single one is operative now.
Experts see the traffic department reasons of anxiety on realistic grounds as the system needs a different cell with trained manpower, equipment and proper budget. The management of traffic through the eyes and hands seems gaudy. For comfortable and disciplined traffic system and safe walking, automation of traffic is a must but it should be able to ease gridlock.
As traffic flow works like a chain reaction, an all comprehensive system should be introduced, if not the lack of coordination between the automated and manual system will make the traffic system chaotic. The Dhaka Urban Transport Project failed to change the life of urban dwellers except making some firms richer; the ongoing project seems to follow the previous.
