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Dhaka Metro Rail

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Native name
  
Bengali: ঢাকা মেট্রো

Transit type
  
Rapid transit

Locale
  
Dhaka, Bangladesh

Number of lines
  
under construction: line 6 planned: lines 1, 5

Number of stations
  
under construction: 16 planned: 52

Daily ridership
  
2021 (projected): 483,000

The Dhaka Metro (Bengali: ঢাকা মেট্রো) is an approved metro rail system under construction in Dhaka, the capital and largest city of Bangladesh. Together with a separate BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) system it been long called for to solve the extreme amount of traffic jams and congestion that occur throughout the entire city on a daily basis, among the heaviest in the world. It is a part of the 20 year long Strategic Transport Plan (STP) chalked out by the Government’s Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA).

Contents

Currently the metro rail system consists of one line referred to as the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) Line-6, with other metro rail lines being added in the future. This wikipedia article focuses mainly on Dhaka MRT Line-6.

The Dhaka Metro Rail Line-6 consists of 16 elevated stations each of 180m long and 20.1 KM of electricity powered light rail tracks. MRT Line-6. All of Line-6, save for the depot, as well as some of its accompanying BRT, will be elevated above current roads primarily above road medians to allow traffic flow underneath, with stations also elevated.

Construction began on 26 June 2016 with an inauguration ceremony presided over by Sheikh Hasina.

Overview

The deal for construction of the 20.1 kilometres (12.5 mi) Line 6, costing $2.8 billion, was signed by the government of Bangladesh with the Japan International Cooperation Agency on 20 February 2013. This first route, originally projected to start from uttara, a northern suburb of Dhaka, to Sayedabad, in the south of the capital, was eventually extended north to Uttara and truncated south to Motijheel.

Each train will hold up to 1800 passengers. With 56 trains to be in service by 2019, Dhaka Metro is projected to serve more than 60,000 passengers per hour by 2051, with wait times of approximately 4 minutes. The entire route will be able to be traveled in less than 40 minutes at an average speed of 100 km/h (62 mph), expected to drastically reduce the number of private cars on Dhaka's streets as well as their potentially 7-hour-long standstills.

During an interview with a local news paper, Md Mofazzel Hossain, Project Director of Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project said "The metro rail would be noise-free, with noise barriers and vibration-free lines, and the cars would be made of stainless steel and aluminium alloy". The system plans to use magnetic contactless Integrated Circuit Ticketing commonly also known as smart cards. Platform screening door (PSD) barriers used in the platform level will increase safety and increase efficiency.

When the service is in full operation, trains of six air-conditioned spacious cars will arrive every four minutes going each way at each of the 16 stations.

The project is being managed by the Communications Ministry’s Dhaka Transport Co-ordination Authority, and a consortium of foreign as well as Bangladeshi firms known as NKDM Association is acting as General Consultant (GC). NKDM Association consists of: Nippon Koei Japan, Nippon Koei India, Delhi Metro Rail Corp (India), Mott MacDonald UK, Mott MacDonald India and Development Design Consultants (local consultant-Bangladesh) t.

Conception and Origin

In a view to implement Dhka City's 20 year long Strategic Transport (STP), Bangladesh Government invited Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to conduct a primary survey and feasibility study on the transport system of Dhaka back in 2009-2010. In 2012 the Government’s Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved the project. A loan agreement between Bangladesh Government and JICA was signed in January 2013. The same year, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd. (DMTC), the implementing agency of MRT Line-6 project was formed. The General Consultant (GC) namely the NKDM Association (See above) commenced work from February 2014.

In June 2013, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTC) was established by the Government to implement the Metro Rail Lines across the City.The project will be constructed under the supervision of (DMTCL) under the jurisdiction of Road Transport and Highway Division, Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges, Government of Bangladesh. Once complete, metro rail services would be operated by DMTCL.

Project Components, Dates and Progress

During an interview with daily sun, Md Mofazzel Hossain, Project Director of Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project said that the project will be implemented under eight construction packages (CP). The development components or construction packages include – CP-01 (Depot Land Development), CP-02 (Depot Civil & Buildings), CP-03, CP-04 (Viaduct & Stations, Uttara-Agargaon), CP-05, CP-06 (Viaduct & Stations, Agargaon-Motijheel), CP-07 (Electro-Mechanical Systems) and CP-08 (Rolling Stock & Depot Equipment).

Utility relocation from Mirpur-10 to Agargaon was planned to start August, 2016, Other surveys have already been completed during the period of 2014-October 2016 as mentioned by the project direcor Topographic Survey, Traffic Survey, Geotechnical Survey, Right of Way (ROW) Survey, Historical Importance/ Archeological (HIA) Survey, Environmental Baseline (EBL) Survey, Soil Electric Resistivity (SER) Survey and Utility Verification Survey.

As of May 2015, soil testing for the line was completed, with construction for the first section having begun on 26 June 2016, and construction for the second section planned to begin in July 2017, for planned public operation by the end of 2019 and sometime in 2020, respectively.

A Japanese firm Tokyo Construction Ltd, is carrying out the depot land development work (CP-01). Tokyu Construction Ltd will develop the depot on a 23.84-hectare of land during the construction period at the cost of around Tk 567 crore. He said the Pre-Qualification (PQ) of CP-02 has already done and 15 firms are qualified for this. Tender for CP-02 is already floated and the last date of the submission is September 6 this year. While asked about CP-03 and CP-04, he said PQ process has been done on April 20 this year. Tender has been invited and the last date of submission is August 8, 2016. But the date may be extended, he mentioned.

Route alignment

Tentative alignments have been decided upon for the three initial metro lines. Only Line 6, as of 27 June 2016, has a definite station layout.

References

Dhaka Metro Rail Wikipedia