At 1:00pm on a workday, Billal Khan was watching YouTube videos sitting inside his car parked on the DIT Circular road in the busy Gulshan-2 area.
He parked his car on a street next to the busiest Gulshan-2 intersection for Tk50 and he felt a sense of relief at having parked in one of the busiest areas in Dhaka.
“Previously we had to worry about parking cars on the street because any time traffic police come and fine for parking on the road, the fine is at least Tk2,500. Now I am parking legally on the street,” said Billal Khan.
Like Billal Khan, now more than six thousand people are parking their vehicles on 11 streets in the busy Gulshan-2 area every month.
Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) in association with Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has launched the pilot project of Smart Parking in the DNCC area in 2023. DNCC has also launched a mobile application “DNCC Smart Parking” for finding parking and booking space online.
The initiative has been taken to bring discipline in the streets of the Gulshan area and make room for parking vehicles in Gulshan area in the city. The city corporation officials said that they are getting a huge response from people for on-street parking and the DNCC wants to expand the service.
To park his car, Billa had to download a mobile application “DNCC Smart Parking” and pay a fee of Tk50 to park his car on the street.
A parking warden was present at the parking lot to help Billal with the process.
Photo: Noor-A-Alam/BFirst
The parking warden, Mohammed Raha, has been posted on the DIT Circular Road behind the Landmark building. He said that a total of 42 cars and 10 motorbikes can be parked there at a time.
The service has started on 8 November 2023. The parking warden said that the charge first two hours of parking a car is Tk50, for the next hour for Tk50, and Tk100 for every next hour. The charge for parking a motorbike is Tk15 for the first two hours. Then Tk15 for the next hour and Tk30 for every extra hour.
He said that the demand for parking is very high because people are getting benefits by parking their cars in the parking lot.
“You can book a parking lot in advance,” said Mohammad Rahat.
He added that in the app, users can see how many spaces are vacant in the parking lot. The time for parking service is from 7am to 10pm.
DNCC Executive Engineer (Traffic Engineering Circle) Nayeem Rayhan Khan said the parking lots are designated on one side of the road.
A total of 278 cars and motorbikes can be parked in the on-street parking lots at a time, he added.
He said that the demand for on-street parking space is very high. More than 40,000 people have registered with the application so far.
“If you consider it as a pilot project, I would say we are getting a huge response, every month 5,000-6,000 people are getting service from the parking lots,” said the DNCC official.
He said that they have a plan to expand the service in different areas of Dhaka in phases.
The DNCC officials are now coordinating with DMP and Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA) to outline how they can expand the services in other parts of north Dhaka.
He said that DTCA asked DNCC to introduce on-street parking facilities to 29 roads in its jurisdiction.
Photo: Noor-A-Alam/BFirst
“We want to expand the area slowly from Gulshan to Banani and then the Mirpur area, phase by phase,” said Engineer Nayeem.
When asked, Professor Hadiuzzaman at the Department of Civil Engineering of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) said more or less 3.5 lakh private cars ply the city roads; on the other hand, most of the buildings do not have sufficient space for parking vehicles.
“The biggest problem is that we have a demand for parking lots, but we don’t have the supply of the parking lots as a result, people are compelled to park their vehicles randomly on the streets,” he added.
He said that they have found in different research that when people park their vehicles illegally and randomly on the streets, the streets lose their capacity by 30% to 40% - the major reason for congestion on the roads in the city.
“The authorities will have to stop illegal parking alongside introducing technology-based on-street parking. To control illegal parking on streets, the capacity on roads will need to be increased by at least 30% and it will lessen traffic congestion,” said Professor Hadiuzzaman.
