Traffic Congestion in Dhaka: The role of transport demand management measures

摘要

The transferability of some market- and non-market based transport demand management(TDM) measures as candidates of reducing traffic congestion in Dhaka are discussed. It issuggested that the ever increasing travel demand of city dwellers cannot be met by providingtransport supply only. The main impediment to building new roadways is the lack of resourcesand land. Despite the fact that Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world, theautomobile registration is growing at an alarming rate, and the city travellers experience daylongsevere traffic congestion during any given weekday. Therefore, it would be wise to thinkabout implementing less costly, as compared to supply side measures, TDM measures to reducethe gap between demand and supply. It is emphasized in the paper that the market basedstrategies like pricing measures and employer based TDM measures have good prospects, andthe relevant authorities should undertake necessary preparations so that they can be implementedwithin a reasonably short period of time. The paper raises some cultural and traffic issues thatmake comparison between the use of TDM measures in developed and developing nations, andthe transferability of policy somewhat complex and problematic. In addition to what has beenraised, there are institutional, technical, educational, legal, political, and resource issues. Theseare not helped by a lack of robust data on which to model traffic flows and ascertain the truenature of the problem.