[sustran] Bangladesh: Is it mission impossible?

[Todd Edelman, Green Idea Factory]

*Bangladesh:Is it mission impossible?*
*29 May 2008 *
<http://www.railwaygazette.com/features_view/article/2008/05/8477/is_it_mission_impossible.html>

Bangladesh is really a large city, and raill-based mass transport will 
be a necessity. But how should the railway develop its role when it has 
lost almost all its traffic to road?

David Burns is a railway industrial engineering consultant with 40 years 
of experience in promoting the development of railways all over the 
world. He is also a frequent contributor to Railway Gazette International.

Bangladesh is a small, poor, densely-populated country. The population 
is 152 million, and could reach 250 million by 2050. The railway 
comprises two remnants of the colonial rail network for the most part 
unchanged since the British left 60 years ago. Bangladesh Railways is a 
shadow of its former self, with just 4% market shares for both passenger 
and freight. The country is essentially a large city, and needs 
effective mass transport, but the railway must overcome major obstacles 
if it is to be an active service provider in the future.

A good road system is critical to the initial development of a country, 
and various aid agencies have helped to create a network of roads in 
Bangladesh. Today, in about 90% of the rural areas, the average distance 
to a road is only 5 km. The private bus industry has taken advantage of 
this, and now accounts for 88% of all passenger-km travelled.

On the country's primary route between Dhaka and Chittagong there are 
five trains and about 1 500 buses each way per day. The bus and truck 
com­panies have very powerful lobbying associations. So, there is almost 
insurmountable competition for the railway.

The rapidly-expanding metropolitan Dhaka area is about half the size of 
?Tokyo, which is served by 73 commuter and metro lines. Dhaka has just 
two under-utilised railways. Given the forecast growth in personal 
income, by 2025 there could be 24 million cars in Bangladesh and four 
times that number by 2050.

The country has almost no minerals (ballast is imported from India) and 
a limited manufacturing industry. Its 5 000 garment factories are not 
oriented for rail freight. The country does not have long distances or 
much in the way of volume transport - the usual basis for successful 
rail freight operations. So, emphasis has been on the lorry. The 
country's primary resource is people. It will be the low-cost 
manufacturing centre of the future, and it could even become the 
low-cost labour source for India.

BR management has been living in almost total isolation (a subscription 
to Railway Gazette International costs the monthly salary of a senior 
manager) and suffers from archaic civil service recruitment and 
promotion rules - it takes two years to hire an engineer. Salaries are 
so low that the primary emphasis is on survival until mandatory 
retirement at 57.

Technical problems are numerous, and some are unique. For example many 
routes have to be built on embankments as high as 10 m because of annual 
flooding of the adjacent rice paddy fields.

Bilateral and mul­ti­lateral aid agen­cies have pro­vided funds, and an 
unending stream of consultants has tried to promote reform and 
development of the railways. Indeed, the railway offices contain 
literally piles of reports that may have been looked at, but the 
recommendations they contain have seldom, if ever, been implemented.

The future for rail freight is clearly international trade with India, 
but BR's share of the revenue will be small because of the short 
distance within the country. Bangladesh is surrounded by India, so 
transit traffic is a prime opportunity. This could double BR's current 
revenue and support development, but it took 43 years to restart the 
international passenger service (p274).

To avoid paving over the country for more roads, the railway needs to 
aim for a 30% share of the passenger market; this could be unachievable 
without ?major restrictions on road usage. It should be noted that the 
French and German railways have, nationally, about a 9% passenger market 
share even with, until recently, a ban on inter-city buses.

The transport problems of Bangladesh can clearly be predicted - it's 
only a matter of timing. The solution is not incremental investment to 
solve short-term problems, but a comprehensive, forward-thinking master 
plan. This also requires the development of a railway organisation that 
has the training and incentives to move ahead - not more foreign 
consultants writing yet more reports.

Resurrecting BR so that it can play a major role in the country's future 
may seem like mission impossible, given the entrenched bus industry and 
the short freight distances, but it could be a ?massive and meaningful 
challenge.

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Todd Edelman
Director
Green Idea Factory

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Czech Republic

Skype: toddedelman
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