Name: Zannatul Naima Mastura

ID: 22201437

Section: 02

Course: ANT 101

Public transport experience in Dhaka city

In Dhaka city dwellers’ life, using transport is one of the major phenomenon. Question might

come across one’s mind how this can be an especially mentionable thing while this is an

integral part of every other metropolitan city dwellers’ life. Answer also lies here why day to

day experience of using traffic in Dhaka city is something culturally significant to be observed.

Range of events that happen here, a city populated with 20 million people, in public transports

are really different from other cultures.

Unlike cities of developed countries, this is not something that simple that you go to a bus

stoppage or metro station, fellow passengers stand in a line and the bus came timely and you

got on, afterwards the bus took you to your destination within an assumed duration. Riding on

a public transport always gives someone joy of winning or sadness of being defeated in a

competition which starts from the very beginning when passengers rush to the bus gate before

it fully stops in a designated stoppage and try to get on wining a shoving competition. However,

some can enter and some cannot and from among those who have entered few or none might

secure a seat. One thing should be mentioned here, though there are many designated
stoppage in roads but bus staffs can make any place a stoppage unless there is traffic police

sergeant stands nearby.

Once you successfully get on a bus, you now will enjoy reckless speed competition among your

bus driver and his fellows. The thing is not something like that your driver is very committed to

ensure that you aren’t late at your office or varsity and don’t have to suffer a fine or a class

missed. Rather, the aim is to defeat other buses in the race to get more passengers waiting

here and there. To do this, drivers don’t hesitate to corner other vehicle to repel from

advancing ahead. Two buses colliding each other from side is a regular scene, evidence of which

can be seen in almost all the public transports’ bodies, as if a big animal scratched the vehicles

with its big sharp nails.

However, while your driver is competing with other drivers, you are also in a competition –if

you still could not secure a seat– with your fellow passengers to get a seat immediately after a

fortunate seat-holder gets off. Competition is not over yet. To get off, you have to shove your

fellows from back to near the gate otherwise you might have this reasonable fear that the bus

will leave your stoppage before you get off. Even if you are so gentle not to enmesh in this

competition you will be forced from your back to do so. There are very few such incidents that

bus conductors and passengers don’t entangle in quarrel over fare rate and often it leads to

scuffle. Passengers tend to be obstinate to establish their right and conductors also tend to be

persistent on their claim.

Reading all these description, one might misconstrue that Dhaka roads are always free and

vehicles can speed up as much as they want. Reality is completely otherwise. Vehicles stay

stuck in signals much longer than they move. One interesting thing can be seen in traffic signals
that there are automated signal post in almost all junctions, some signal lights even are

functional but in practice, traffic are controlled by traffic police manually. When a traffic police

man raise hand, traffic stop and when he signals to move, the traffic start to move. Vehicles sit

idle in a signal, drivers still have one thing to compete, sometimes in chorus, which is blowing

horn. It seems that vehicle drivers do it to plea the traffic controller to let them move or a

protest against holding them for long but it also seems that it has no empirical impact on their

decision making process. This could be seen as a way of expressing desperation and also a

mechanism to release frustration.

Hence, along with competition in every steps, inconsistence traffic horn sound is also an

integral part of Dhaka city transportation experience. People seems to be used to with this high

sound, rush and competition, frustration and mechanism to release the frustration.