An inter-district bus is carrying only two passengers to its destination as people are avoiding public transport amid the coronavirus outbreak. The photo was taken from Nilkhet area in the capital on Sunday. – Md nasir uddin

Many people are now refraining from making long journey by public transport in fear of being infected with Covid-19.

Sources said public transport is suffering a severe passenger crisis and huge financial losses every day.
Without any emergency need, people are not using public transport like bus, train and aircraft in such a corona crisis in the country.

However, they prefer to trip by car, auto-rickshaw and motorbike.

In the wake of the poor passenger presence, the authorities are now cancelling schedules of many domestic flights and intercity trains one after another.

Bangladesh Railway (BR) has suspended two intercity train services on Dhaka-Chattogram and Dhaka-Noakhali routes from Saturday for not getting adequate passengers.

The services of Sonar Bangla Express and Noakhali Upokul Express resumed after the government relaxed lockdown on public transport from May 31.

Officials said a decision to suspend Sonar Bangla Express has been taken as another train Subarna Express on Dhaka-Chattogram route is now in operation.
The service of Noakhali Upokul Express was also stopped on Sunday as Noakhali has been locked down after the government declared the district as ‘red zone’.

Officials said following the announcement, Noakhali Upokul has been operating to Laksam for the last five days.

Since the resumption of eight intercity trains on May 31 and 11 more on June 3, the BR has not been getting adequate passengers to operate many train services.

According to a BR record, the initial ticket sale rate of 90 per cent dropped to 40-45 per cent during the last two weeks.

Against 24,054 seats of 38 trains, the BR could sell only 11,144 tickets on June 8 followed by 127,71; 12,544; 12,704; 10,145 and 11,255 tickets on the following dates.

The General Manager of BR Western zone said the decision to suspend the two intercity train services has been taken temporarily to overview the ongoing Covid 19 situation.

On the other hand, most of the city and inter-district buses are now running with a few passengers. Transport workers complain of not getting adequate passengers.

Long-haul bus operators mainly complained about not getting minimum passengers against their fuel costs as buses are running with some passengers in one way.

They claimed to be operating buses with a poor number of passengers from Dhaka to other districts.

"Keeping services on is now difficult for us with giving daily demurrage," a bus owner said.

City bus operators also claimed passengers are less on different routes.

Most operators do not run half of their buses in what they describe as inadequate passengers against the permissible number of seats.

During a visit, a shortage of passengers was found in most city-buses in the last few days at some points, including the National Press Club to Mirpur-1, Mirpur-1 to Mirpur-12 and Mirpur-12 to Gulistan and Jatrabari to Uttara.

But, there was always a try from drivers and helpers to get more passengers.

Mohakhali Bus Terminal Owners Association president Abul Kalam Azad said 30 per cent of buses have resumed their services since the lockdown was relaxed.

But, no vehicles get minimum passengers to continue the services.

Continuing the bus service is not a wise decision when people are still scare of coronavirus as well as business did not get momentum, he mentioned.

"People are conscious about health issues and not willing to move from one place to another in case of emergency," he added.

Transport owners and workers said they were in hardship during the lockdown period, but after withdrawal they even cannot earn their minimum daily needs.

Recently, Biman Bangladesh Airlines also cancelled all 24 flights scheduled to operate on three domestic routes due to lack of passengers.

"We were forced to cancel all our scheduled flights as the number of passengers was very few," Tahera Khandaker, deputy general manager (public relations) of Biman, told journalists.

The maiden flight of Biman on Dhaka-Saidpur route took off on Monday with only four passengers on board while the return flight had 20 passengers, she said.

Except for the Dhaka-Saidpur-Dhaka flight, the national airliner had to cancel 10 others flights on Chattogram and Sylhet routes on June 1 -- the day regular flight operations resumed on a limited scale on the three domestic routes after more than two months of suspension due to coronavirus.

Biman was charging Tk 3,000 to 3,200 or more as starting price for tickets while two private airlines -- US-Bangla and Novoair -- charged Tk 1,999 as starting price for the same routes.

Apart from Biman, US-Bangla Airlines was forced to cancel two of its flights recently due to passenger shortage, said Kamrul Islam, general