With the cooperation of the Traffic Division of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) and Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), a pilot project under the Dhaka Road Traffic Safety Project (DRSP) has been launched to ensure safe pedestrian crossings.
This initiative, which started on Sunday, will continue until May 8. Deputy Police Commissioner of DMP's Media and Public Relations Division, Muhammad Talebur Rahman, provided this information.
Under the pilot project, activities will be conducted daily (except on holidays) from 8am to 12pm at the pedestrian crossings located in front of the National Heart Foundation Hospital and Mirpur University College in Mirpur.
To ensure pedestrian safety during peak hours, DNCC has properly marked and widened the crossing. During this time, a portable traffic light has also been installed, allowing pedestrians to press a push button to receive a signal for crossing. DMP’s traffic police will be deployed at the location to assist pedestrians and enforce the law against traffic rule violators.
This area has been selected because multiple safety challenges have been identified around the nearby healthcare and educational institutions. These challenges include unsafe crossings, inadequate crossing points, illegal parking, and unauthorized stopping of buses on the zebra crossing.
Instructions for vehicle drivers are as follows: Traffic signals and lights must be followed. Vehicles must stop before the stop line when the traffic light is yellow or red. Under no circumstances should a vehicle be stopped on the zebra crossing.
As for pedestrians, they must wait on the footpath before crossing the road. When the traffic light turns green, the road must be crossed using the zebra crossing. To cross the road, pedestrians need to press the push switch on the traffic light pole on the footpath and wait for the green signal.
The effectiveness of the pilot project will be evaluated based on pedestrian feedback and other data analysis. The experience gained from this project will be used to further improve traffic safety initiatives in Dhaka city in the future.
It is to be noted that the DRSP project is funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and aims to develop traffic safety systems in Dhaka city and enhance the capacity of DMP. In this project, DMP is working closely with the city corporations of Dhaka.
