Uttara-Motijheel Metro: Buses beginning to feel the pinch

Ever since the metro trains started operating between Uttara and Motijheel all day, buses have been seeing fewer passengers.

Many bus owners and transport workers said they were counting losses.

Metro has been operating between Uttara and Motijheel since early November last year. But the trains only operated from 7:10am to 11:30am. The time was extended to 8:40 at night on January 20.

"The impact of metro on our business was not significant until the trains started operating all day. Now we are losing money," said Maksudur Rahman, owner of a bus of Bikalpa Paribahan.

Bikalpa, which used to operate 35 buses on the Motijheel-Mirpur-12 route, extended its route up to Jatrabari in November in the hope that its business would remain unhurt.

The company yesterday operated only 27 buses, keeping the rest parked.

Maksudur said he used to earn over Tk 1,500 every time his bus went from Motijheel to Mirpur-12 on weekday evenings. "Now I only make Tk 11,00-Tk 1,300 or even less."

Maksudur said he bought the bus in 2019, borrowing from a bank.

He is now considering whether to operate his bus on a different route to be able to repay the loan.

Mohammad Jashim, who owns four buses of Mirpur Super Link which operates on the Azimpur-Mirpur-12 route, said that the impact of metro rail was beyond imagination.

He used to earn Tk 2,000 to TK 2,300 when each of his buses went from Mirpur to Azimpur during the morning peak hours. "It has now come down to Tk 1,200-Tk1,400."

He added that owners of Mirpur Super Link buses recently decided to operate 30 buses on the route instead of 50.

Jahid Hossain, head supervisor of Shadhin Express which operates between Mawa and Mirpur-12, said nearly half of his clients were people commuting from Pallabi to Gulistan. But now the percentage has come down to around 10 percent.

Employees of Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation and Bihanga Paribahan also gave similar accounts of their businesses.

According to metro authorities, around 2.5 lakh commuters have been using their service every day. At peak hours in the morning, 1,800-2,000 people travel from Uttara to Motijheel on each train. This has impacted the business of buses.

Mohammad Alam, a 42-year-old businessman, who used to commute between Pallabi and Motijheel, said the metro service had saved him from the agony of spending hours in traffic.

"Somedays, it took me almost three hours to travel just 14 kilometres. Now it takes only 30 minutes," he said yesterday.

According to a 2017 World Bank analysis, traffic congestion eats up 3.2 million working hours per day in Dhaka, one of the world's most densely populated cities.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the Uttara North-Agargaon section of the country's first metro rail in December 2022.