A feasibility study for a segregated bus service for women in Dhaka, Bangladesh | |
| Author | Ahmed, Nobbir |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.HS-98-02 |
| Subject(s) | Bus lines--Bangladesh--Dhaka Women--Bangladesh--Dhaka--Communication |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, School of Environment, Resources and Development |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Thesis ; no. HS-98-02 |
| Abstract | A separate bus service for women has been a concern for a long time. BRTC, the public organization, introduced separate service in 1985 and 1991. Both the atterr..pts failed due to various reasons. Government is trying to abandon subsidy policy and BRTC has also changed its policy to make its operation profitable. A subsidized separate transit service for women is no more feasible under public sector. Under such a profit-oriented environment, solution is sought with initiative of private sector and economic feasibility of women-only bus is analyzed. The study concentrates its analysis only on one route (Mirpur-Azimpur) which is one of the two roads that connects the largest residential suburb of the city to the downtown. The analysis has used data from secondary and primary sources simultaneously. Secondary Data is largely extracted from DITS repmts and is used to estimate women population of the study area and their travel characteristics. Primary data is collected from the field, both at origin and destination of travel, through passenger questionnaire survey and is used to model their behavior in order to estimate their response to new service and their willingness to pay. Women of Mirpur who use rickshaw, tempo, autorickshaw and bus as their modes of travel constitute the sample frame. The supply side factors are obtained through personal interview of key informants. All primary data are analyzed by statistical package SPSS. Multivariate Discriminant Analysis is used to understand the behavior pattern of women and to identify the important factors that influence women's modal choice. Policy variables sensitive to modal shift are also identified. The model with current modes as dependent variable shows that women do not use bus because of woman specific factors (related to interaction with males). The next model with an additional category (women-only bus) of dependent variable, shows that travel time, cost and distance are main choice facwrs. This is because the introduction of women-only bus eliminates variables related to man woman interaction. To suppo1t a public transit mode, a threshold number of passengers is required, which is obtained from the analysis of supply side factors. Number of women who will shift their modal choice to women-only bus and women's willingness to pay a higher fare are determined by analyzing the primary and secondary data simultaneously. A significant proportion of women will shift from their present mode to women-only bus. Although the proportion is one-fourth of women who demanded a separate bus, in absolute number, this is more than what is required to suppmt the new service. The number of passenger of women-only bus is less than that of the general bus but because the fare level is higher, the overall revenue from the new service is found to be higher indicating the feasibility of the segregated bus service. |
| Year | 1998 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Thesis ; no. HS-98-02 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Other Field of Studies (No Department) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Human Settlement (HS) |
| Chairperson(s) | Morishita, Hideharu; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Sheng, Yap Kioe ;Nakatsuji, Takashi; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | His Majesty the King of Thailand; |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology |