Every Ramadan, Dhaka undergoes a familiar late-afternoon transformation. Around 4:30 pm, traffic begins to swell; by 5:15 pm, buses are packed beyond comfort, motorcycles squeeze through narrowing gaps, and private cars crawl forward in visible frustration. The countdown to iftar turns the city into a race against time.
This is not anecdotal exaggeration. The traffic division of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has repeatedly acknowledged the surge in vehicles during the pre-iftar period and urged motorists to avoid blocking roads and causing public distress, as in the previous year.
Commuters similarly reported severe tailbacks across major corridors after offices close, as thousands attempt to return home simultaneously, a common issue in recent years. The pattern repeats annually with almost mechanical precision.
The underlying issue is structural rather than seasonal emotion alone. Ramadan shortens office hours, yet most institutions, government offices, banks, factories, educational institutions, and private firms release employees within a narrow time window. When tens of thousands leave at nearly the same time, the road network is suddenly overwhelmed by a surge that far exceeds its short-term capacity.
Public transport supply remains largely unchanged despite sharp spikes in demand. Key intersections become choke points. Informal roadside vendors expand evening stalls. Pedestrian crossings increase near markets. The system, already fragile under ordinary weekday traffic, faces intensified pressure within minutes. Unlike regular rush hour, which spans a broader period, the pre-iftar rush compresses the city’s mobility into a single shared deadline.
Dhaka’s vulnerability to such compressed surges is not accidental. The city’s road network occupies a relatively small proportion of total urban land compared to global metropolitan standards, while private vehicle ownership has steadily increased over the past decade.
Although recent infrastructure projects such as the Dhaka Metro Rail and the Dhaka Elevated Expressway have begun to ease pressure along selected corridors, coverage remains limited relative to the scale of daily demand. Road distribution across the city is uneven, and mass transit alternatives are insufficient to handle peak-hour surges.
The majority of commuters still rely on conventional buses operating without tightly coordinated schedules, alongside informal transport modes that respond reactively rather than predictably to demand spikes. When thousands attempt to move simultaneously within a compressed timeframe, the system lacks the elasticity to absorb the shock. Ramadan does not create this fragility; it merely exposes it in concentrated form.
For many, iftar represents family, reflection, and spiritual routine. This desire to reach home before Maghrib shapes behaviour on the road. Drivers accelerate through closing gaps, buses stop abruptly to maximize passenger loads, and pedestrians attempt hurried crossings.
Fatigue from fasting combined with psychological urgency can influence decision-making. International research has explored how fasting and time pressure may affect traffic behavior and accident patterns.
While Bangladesh-specific Ramadan accident statistics are not systematically isolated each year, local reports repeatedly highlight congestion and heightened safety risks during these hours. Even without comprehensive data, lived experience suggests that the final stretch before iftar consistently becomes one of the city’s most volatile daily windows.
The burden of this congestion is also unevenly shared. Those with private vehicles may experience delays, but they do so with relative protection from dust, heat, and crowding. Many others, such as garment workers finishing shifts, day labourers paid by the hour, domestic workers leaving employers’ homes, rickshaw pullers navigating gridlock, and public bus passengers pressed shoulder to shoulder, face a more exhausting reality.
Some break their fast in traffic, relying on water bottles or small packets of dates handed through windows. For low-income commuters, leaving early is often not permitted. Thus, pre-iftar congestion intersects with both mobility and inequality. It exposes how urban stress disproportionately affects those with the least flexibility and the narrowest margins for delay.
For many low-income commuters, time flexibility is not a negotiable privilege. Garment workers operate under strict shift structures tied to production quotas. Informal sector workers, including delivery riders and day labourers, are often paid by task completion rather than a fixed salary, creating pressure to squeeze in one final trip before iftar.
Prolonged congestion during fasting hours can intensify dehydration, fatigue, and exposure to high levels of roadside air pollution. What appears as a temporary inconvenience for some becomes a compounded physical and economic strain for others.
The experience of other Muslim-majority cities shows that seasonal pre-iftar pressure points can be managed through administrative adjustments.
In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), labour rules during Ramadan formally reduce daily working hours - an approach meant to accommodate fasting routines and ease end-of-day strain. Transport authorities in Dubai adjust metro operating hours during Ramadan to align with altered evening travel patterns.
In Jakarta, police have publicly anticipated earlier and heavier congestion in the first week of Ramadan and said they will deploy personnel to manage recurring bottlenecks as commuters rush home before iftar.
These steps are not expensive infrastructure overhauls; they are operational calibrations that more evenly distribute demand over time. Dhaka’s challenge, therefore, is not uniqueness but coordination and timely implementation.
What makes this annual strain particularly frustrating is its predictability. Ramadan’s schedule is known months in advance, giving the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Dhaka North City Corporation, Dhaka South City Corporation, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, and major employers time to coordinate targeted, seasonal responses.
Staggered exit timings, particularly across garment clusters in Mirpur, Tejgaon, and Savar, could prevent simultaneous corridor overload; even a 30-minute spread between 3:30 pm and 5:00 pm would help flatten the surge.
During the critical 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm window, DMP could deploy rapid-response teams at predictable choke points such as Farmgate, Gulistan, Mohakhali, and Jatrabari to prevent illegal parking and lane blockages. Temporary roadside vending controls along major arteries during that final hour, along with modest increases in bus frequency on high-demand routes, could preserve road width and improve passenger flow.
Clear public advisories before and during Ramadan would help commuters plan departures more flexibly, while institutions might consider optional on-site iftar arrangements to reduce travel driven by urgency. These steps do not require major infrastructure investment; they require coordination, communication, and disciplined seasonal planning.
The conversation about Ramadan traffic should remain calm and constructive. This is not about criticizing religious observance or assigning blame to commuters or officials. Ramadan emphasizes discipline, patience, and compassion - values that can also inform urban governance.
Pre-iftar congestion is not an unpredictable crisis; it is a scheduled pressure point that returns each year. A city that knows its stress window has both the responsibility and the institutional capacity to prepare for it.
With modest coordination, practical enforcement, and clearer communication, those final 90 minutes before iftar could become safer, less unequal, and more orderly. The pattern will return. The question is whether our response will evolve or remain unchanged.
Shaikh Afnan Birahim is a writer and analyst.
