Funding Road Safety Programs and Projects in Bangladesh
Road is the dominant mode of transport in Bangladesh and the road accident rate in Bangladesh is much higher than those of the developed nations. Moreover, the road accident rate has been steadily increasing over the years -- even exceeding the rates in other developing nations. A study based on over 3500 police reported fatalities per year conservatively estimates that the annual economic loss resulting from road accidents is well over US $850 million or approximately two percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Nearly 50% of the total road accidents occur on National and Regional Highways that have a combined length of 7893 km. The severity of accidents on those roadways is much higher than those of the city and other roadways. However, the government of Bangladesh has been failing to formulate sound policies, and implement targeted programs and projects to improve road safety mainly due to fiscal budget deficits (funding shortage) for a sustained period. The fiscal budget of Bangladesh government has two parts, namely revenue and development. The development budget, a large share of it is dedicated to infrastructure development projects, comes from the government and international development partners (e.g., World Bank, Asian Development Bank etc) sources. There has never been an adequate fund in the national budget to address the road safety issue effectively. Moreover, often road operations improvement and maintenance projects are considered as an indirect investment on road safety. However, without the establishment of a dedicated and sustainable fund, articulation of the visions and development of targeted road safety programs and projects is nearly impossible. This study highlights the road safety issues in Bangladesh and proposes that suitable revenue sources to be used to establish a dedicated fund for the road safety improvement programs and projects. It also recommends that, in conjunction with the dedicated fund, other road safety financing options/tools such as public private partnerships and debt based finance from the expatriate's remittance source need to be considered to improve road safety in general and particularly on national and regional highways. These highways are managed by the Roads and Highways Department, an entity under the road division of the Ministry of Communications.
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Availability:
- Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9780784413586
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Supplemental Notes:
- © 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Corporate Authors:
American Society of Civil Engineers
1801 Alexander Bell Drive
Reston, VA United States 20191-4400 -
Authors:
- Chowdhury, Md Shoab
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Conference:
- Second Transportation & Development Congress 2014
- Location: Orlando Florida, United States
- Date: 2014-6-8 to 2014-6-11
- Publication Date: 2014-5
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
- Pagination: pp 437-447
- Monograph Title: T&DI Congress 2014: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Budgeting; Financing; Government funding; Highway safety; Policy; Traffic crashes; Trend (Statistics)
- Geographic Terms: Bangladesh
- Subject Areas: Finance; Highways; Policy; I10: Economics and Administration;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01529141
- Record Type: Publication
- ISBN: 9780784413586
- Files: TRIS, ASCE
- Created Date: Jun 27 2014 8:49AM