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Pooling the way out of gridlock

Gridlocked roads, unending traffic snarls and ever increasing pollution: it’s an all too familiar sight in fast growing cities across…

Pooling the way out of gridlock

Gridlocked roads, unending traffic snarls and ever increasing pollution: it’s an all too familiar sight in fast growing cities across South Asia. Dhaka is no exception. In fact, by some reckonings, it’s the ‘traffic capital of the world.’
The nonstop jams are attracting the wrong kind of international attention to the country and dragging on economic growth. According to one study, the cost of traffic congestion on only one city route–from the airport to Postogola–is estimated to be over Taka 272 billion.

Dhaka stands alongside other cities at the intersection of a global trend towards urbanisation. From only 13 per cent in 1900, the percentage of the world’s population that lives in the cities is expected to rise to 70 per cent by 2050.

Getting them moving again won’t be easy, and will need investment in public transit systems. But a big part of solving the problem can be found in the technology and the cars that already exist on the street.

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That may sound strange, but it’s not. Ride-hailing services make it easy for people to share their underutilised vehicles, ultimately getting more people into fewer cars at the same time. The great thing is, enabling carpooling won’t cost the government any extra money and can make an immediate impact. The potential rewards in the form of less traffic and more liveable cities can be very significant.

Of course, carpooling is not a new idea. People in Bangladesh and elsewhere have been doing it for decades. The difference now is that ridesharing services can instantly match passengers headed in the same direction at the same time. Powered by technology, it’s a model that works and can create impact at scale.

If you look around the world today, outdated rules hold carpooling back in many countries by distinguishing between commercial drivers (good) and private drivers (bad). These rules make it difficult — if not impossible — for ordinary people to share rides and help facilitate carpooling on a wide scale. By making sharing hard, governments end up forcing citizens to own personal vehicles – at a huge public cost.

The good news is that there’s increasing momentum for reform, with more and more cities introducing progressive regulations. In just over three years, nearly 70 states and cities in the US have made the leap, and several states in Mexico and Australia have followed suit.
At the heart of these new rules is the belief that one citizen should be free to give another citizen a ride across town – so long as there are regulations to ensure that important safety and consumer protection standards are met.

We now have the technology to make our cities more liveable and less congested. But reducing our dependence on cars needs a cultural shift as much as a technological one. For decades, cars have been seen as a status symbol. But attitudes are starting to change as people around the world realise it’s easier to press a button on their phones to get a ride rather than go through the hassle and expense of owning a private car.

As Bangladesh considers ways to cut congestion, it should investigate laws that would encourage ride-sharing. We don’t have to wait five or 10 years to create the cities of the future. With progressive regulations and the technology already in our pockets, we can build mobility alternatives for smart cities of today.

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