What Is Traffic Congestion?

Traffic congestion is a daily phenomenon that costs people a lot of time, is very harmful to the environment and may even cost some money. There are many obvious causes for traffic congestion, such as the amount of cars, size of the road, situational factors on the road such as accidents and eroded roads. One might think that Bangladesh has always had congested roads, where people struggle to move an inch from their position. However, that would be the current situation but before 2010 traffic congestion never stood out as a national headache. In fact, only 7% urban population in 1971 (Morshed, 2015). This means that people were not forcing themselves into cities like the current rate. Back then the traffic laws were not enforced and since

Rules and regulations were taken seriously only after 1980. For example, the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act 1988, Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act 1990, these acts were formed and enforced many years after the country’s independence, thus Bangladesh has been managing it’s roads and transportation systems pretty much without the required perspicacity regarding the issues. In the past, many organizations have been formed to enforce traffic rules and regulations, maintain road quality and establish a proper and safe transporting system for the people. For example, the RHD (Road and Highway Department) is responsible for the management of major road network that includes National Highways, Regional Highways and Zilla Roads (The Constitution of People’s Republic of Bangladesh, 1972). The Ministry of Communications which is responsible to provide the People of Bangladesh with a safe, cost effective well maintained road network (The Constitution of People’s Republic of Bangladesh, 1972). Since the beginning of such organizations Bangladesh has seen improvements in making better laws and coming up with better

The government has tried several different strategies but none seem to keep up to its promises. People grew up not following rules and in a society where following rules is not very much emphasized. This leads to the formation of generations that do not understand the importance of maintaining laws and thus making it harder for the government and the officials to oversee and control things. Now, looking into the past is only going to bring out flaws, ones that we can use to make our current situation better and make better decisions for the future. It is important to extract the valuable information and the data from past because unlike before more and more people are moving in to the metropolitan areas, making it even more complicated to come up with solutions. Thus, Bangladesh, as a whole needs to acknowledge the effects of traffic congestion and change the attitude towards the