The authorities concerned are still struggling to make the bus route franchise (BRF) system workable in Dhaka city due to failure to convince bus operators to abide by compliances.
Insiders said Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA) and two Dhaka city corporations are gradually replicating the traditional and typical bus service in the BRF system.
They said the BRF system, which was tried through piloting a route from Ghatarchar to Kanchpur, is now operating based on trips of the number of buses of the companies.
As the authorities concerned could not convince the participating private companies to form a single company registered with the Office of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms or sign joint venture agreement to manage BRF system, they are now facing problems in sharing income of daily trips among the operators, sources said.
Initially, 20 buses of one private bus company were operating on the pilot route along with 30 BRTC buses from 26 December. DTCA then shared the earnings of the ticket sales - the ratio of BRTC to the private company was 65:35.
But the problem was created when one more bus company was allowed to ply 40 more buses by the special committee formed to work on BRF in its 22nd meeting, sources said.
By increasing the number of buses of the first bus company, the two operators were asked to run a total 80 buses - 40 each - on the pilot route, as per the decision of the meeting.
However, the two companies did not want to share their income equally, showing the reason that another company might not operate all buses.
"They get suspicious about each other...not all buses might be on the fleet always…operators may do it to reduce operational cost," said one insider.
The city now has bus services run by more than 400 companies with a fixed number of buses on specific routes. The regional transport committee (RTC) under BRTA has so far given route permits to these companies upon their application to run a fixed number of buses on their desired routes.
The effort to introduce the BRF system has been taken to withdraw the unscientific bus operation system mentioned above, as this traditional system leads to plying of buses of various companies on the same route and unfair competition among buses.
DTCA introduced the pilot route on December 26 deviating from the actual BRF system as all the existing bus operators did not want to merge and form the single company as per BRF.
Without withdrawing these companies from the pilot route, the authority later tried to sign joint venture agreement on relaxed rules.
Finally, it selected Trans Silva and three other companies to be the operators on the pilot route after it issued a public notice inviting interested companies to participate in it.
The special committee formed in September 2018, with mayor of the Dhaka South City Corporation as chairman, finally managed to launch the pilot route under green cluster.
The committee rationalised 400 routes of Dhaka city into fewer routes under six clusters. It during its 22nd meeting this month announced that it would introduce the BRF system on three more routes.
Officials said they were following the traditional system in selecting the BRF bus operators as it was difficult to form a single company.
But they said DTCA was still trying to bring changes with a tracking system to make sure that all the fixed number of buses plying the route.
"As we know how many tickets have been sold because of the electronic ticket system, a tracking system will help us monitor the buses," said an official.
On an average 250,000 tickets are sold and there is a need for more buses, he said.
But insiders said as buses were not run through a genuine BRF system, the companies would not get loans or the fund created to buy or renovate their buses.
The banks are also unwilling to give the companies loans for purchasing modern buses, added the sources.
Moreover, the fund created to provide a loan of Tk 300,000 to the bus operators to renovate the existing buses as per the BRF, could not be distributed.
