The state of safety and services on the country’s roads, railways and waterways remained bad as usual in 2020.

Even during the harsher COVID-19 onslaught, when movement was relatively much lower than the normal a huge number of people died in road, railway and waterway accidents.

Fatal accidents, poor services and maintenance, mismanagement, lack of enforcement of existing laws and coordination among authorities and waste of public money are still the major problems in these sectors.

Safety was the biggest concern for the road communication, poor services, including uncertain and irregular schedules, and derailments marked the railway sector while disruption in ferry services was a major feature in the waterway transportation in the year.

Transport experts said that it was a matter of concern that the number of accident casualties remained high in the year while the authorities should have improved the safety situation in the sectors, especially as the number of both passengers and transports were low due to COVID-19 lockdowns.

Reckless driving, competition among bus drivers and violation of traffic rules on roads dominated the sector in 2020 while the Road Transport Act 2018 was yet to be fully implemented.

According to the first information reports prepared by the Bangladesh Police, 2,891 people were killed in 3,000 road accidents till September in the year.

Besides, major railway and waterway accidents occurred round the year, including in Dhaka, Jaipurhat and Netrakona.   

Between January and November this year, 127 people were killed and 31 injured in 125 train accidents in the country, showed a research based on newspaper reports by the Accident Research Institute at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.

Ferry services were disrupted on the Shimulia–Kathalbari water channel of the Padma almost throughout the year while the ferry terminal at Kathalbari has recently been shifted to another point due to navigability crisis and erosion.

Professor Shamsul Hoque, a former director of the Accident Research Institute at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said that there were almost no improvements seen in the safety situation in the road, railway and waterway sectors despite large investments.

‘In the three sectors there was no background work carried out to improve safety  while the number of passengers was few on roads, railways and waterways,’ he said, adding that problems in these sectors rather became more compounded.

‘It is a matter of great concern that even during the peak of coronavirus infections so many people should die in road and railway accidents,’ he said.

The most dangerous trend in 2020, Shamsul said, was to relieve various road sector institutions from their responsibilities.

Earlier on April 28, 2019 a committee led by former shipping minister Shajahan Khan, also executive president of Bangladesh Road Transport Workers’ Federation, submitted 111 immediate, short and long-term recommendations to the prime minister to bring back order on roads and control accidents.

After views were exchanged over the recommendations, a 33-member taskforce was formed on October 15 the same year led by home minister Asaduzzaman Khan to implement the recommendations.

‘The trend of passing over responsibilities to others did not change this year [2020] too,’ said Shamsul Hoque, adding, ‘I can say for sure that this practice has held us back.’

He, however, said that the authorities continued to implement big projects even during the COVID-19 outbreak, which was a success.

‘We can use the experience of 2020 as a lesson for what we should do in future while facing hurdles in implementing projects,’ he added.

Accident Research Institute director Professor Md Hadiuzzaman said that the number of accidents on roads, railways and waterways did not go down in 2020.

 ‘After the Strategic Transport Plan we did not see any improvement in traffic management and bus route franchise in Dhaka in last 15 years,’ he continued.