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SURFACE
TRANSPORT
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General Overview
Bangladesh,
a densely populated country
with an estimated population
of 978 persons/sq km, has an
extensive and diversified
transport system comprising
1,03,536 km roads (20,948 km
highways and 82,588 km rural
roads), 2834 route km
railways, 24,000 km inland
waterways, 2 seaports,
maritime shipping, and civil
aviation etc.. Of multiple
modes of transportation the
road transport by an order
of magnitude in carriage of
goods and passengers has
apparently been playing the
most dominant role.
While
there have been advances and
improvements in this sector,
development is going on at
slow pace. There are
critical physical and
nonphysical barriers to
passenger and freight flows,
and the continuing low
productivity of state-run
transport services.
Deficiencies like poor
maintenance of
infrastructure, inadequate
integration of multimodal
opportunities, non-inclusive
transport and emission
policy, capacity constraints
of ports, and lack of
strategic international
transit connectivity,
presence of mixed traffic in
the arterial city roads,
lack of proper enforcement
of traffic safety
regulations, congestion and
overloading as well as
pollution etc. have limited
the ability of the system to
respond to user needs.
Investment, particularly in
asset preservation has been
low due to resource
constraint.
The
Roads and Highways
Department (RHD) is a lead
infrastructure network
development agency already
established a corridor based
road network all over the
country. In RHD’s
jurisdiction there has been
a total 17,546 km paved road
of different category, 4507
no. of bridges with a total
length of about 130 km and
13751 no of culverts with a
length of 54 km. RHD is also
responsible for the
operation and maintenance of
an extensive ferry system
which are being gradually
replaced with bridges.
The
Local Government Engineering
Department (LGED) since
preparation of rural
development strategy in
1985, has been developing
the farm to market roads and
has made significant
progress in the sector. It
has so far constructed total
82,588 km of rural roads and
8,04,635 metre
bridges/culverts in the
rural areas.
Before
1998, the country was
separated into two parts by
the mighty river Jamuna.
After construction of a 4.80
km long Bangubhandu bridge
in 1998 with the assistance
of ADB, WB and JICA, the
transport sector as well as
economy of the country got
new dimension and added
momentum further. After
construction of the Bridge
tremendous traffic has been
witnessed which was not
imagined before its
construction.
Bangladesh
represents a vehicle fleet
of 1.2 million motorized
vehicles of different
categories with 0.8 million
motor driver with legal
driving licenses as of 2009.
Bangladesh Road Transport
Authority (BRTA) is
dedicated to regulatory
functions like registration
and fitness certification of
vehicles under existing
relevant laws. With the
increase of road network and
vehicle fleets road safety
is a growing concern of the
society. Each year
officially approximately
3000 persons are being
killed and many more sustain
disabling injuries. In
economic terms, road
accident is costing the
community in the order of Tk.
5000 crore (US$850) which is
nearly 2% of GDP.
Bangladesh
Railways
Bangladesh Railway (BR), a
state-run transportation
agency of the country, has
2835.04 route Km rail line
with 440 nos. stations, 286
nos. locomotives, 1503 nos.
coaches and 10226 nos.
wagons. Railway connected
almost all important places
of 44 civil districts and
plays important role in the
economy. It operates 261
passenger trains (Intercity
68, Mail & Express 66,
Local 127) and 55 goods
trains including container
trains daily on an average.
Besides, it operates the
largest Inland Container
Depot with capacity of
90,000 TEUs.
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