Staff Reporter :
The use of motorcycles is increasing day by day in the capital city, where traffic jam is almost a incurable problem. The number of registered motorcycles in the capital increased by 268 percent in last 10 years, sources said.
Since ride sharing has become popular in the city since 2016, the number of motorcycles increased so fast, said the concerned people.
Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) sources said the number of registered motorcycles in Dhaka was 2,10,081 till 2010. This number has increased gradually and at the end of September this year the number reached at 7,73,170.
As a result, the number of registered motorcycles in Dhaka has increased by 5,63,89 in last 10 years. The growth rate of the motorcycles is 268 percent in the period. Of these, the number of registered motorcycles in the city increased by 3,35,844 in last four years.
According to the BRTC data, the number of the registered motorcycles increased in the city in a rapid way since 2016. Actually ride sharing also became popular in the country from this time. From 2011 to 2015, about 30,000 to 40,000 new motorcycles were being registered in Dhaka every year. But in 2016, for the first time, the number of new motorcycle registrations exceeded half a lakh. In the year, 53,738 new motorcycles were registered.
The number increases with the passage of time. In 2017, a total of 75,251 motorcycles got registration, in 2018, the number became 1,04,064, in 2019, the number was 99273 and the number till September this year is 57273.
However, business activities had been stalled for more than two months this year due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Bangladesh announced the first confirmed coronavirus cases in the country on March 8. The government declared a general holidays for 66 days from March 26 to May 30 this year to contain the spread of the infectious virus. Motorcycle registration was also stopped on this time.
A sales executive of Honda, a Japan based Motorcycle Company, said that their show-rooms were kept close in the lockdown period as the government declared a general holidays that time. But their selling increased after the lockdown.
Meanwhile, despite the increase in the number of motorcycles, the number of new microbuses in Dhaka decreased in the last few years.
According to the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), a total of 5,159 new microbuses were registered in Dhaka in 2016. But after that the number decreased gradually. In 2017, a total of 4927 microbuses were registered, in 2018 the number was 3585, in 2019 the number was 3241 and till September in 2020, a total of 1604 microbuses were registered.
