A dedicated women-only bus service launched by the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) to ensure safer public transit in Dhaka recorded sparse passenger numbers on its first full day of operations. On Wednesday, 19 August, special vehicles traversed capital routes mostly empty, even as female commuters continued to battle overcrowding on standard public buses.
During peak morning transit hours around 9:00 am, a double-decker women-only bus departing from Mirpur 10 towards Motijheel was observed crossing the Shyamoli intersection. The upper deck remained entirely vacant, while only four to five female passengers occupied seats on the lower level. A male passenger and a male assistant were also noted near the rear entrance. As the bus proceeded past the Aarong signal toward the Parliament area around 9:30 am, no additional passengers boarded or alighted at intermediate stops.
Despite a visible presence of female commuters at major transit hubs, few chose to wait specifically for the designated services. At Farmgate, female passengers crowded regular local buses, with several forced to hang from vehicle doorways alongside male passengers to reach their destinations. Observers monitoring the Farmgate junction between 9:30 am and 10:30 am recorded no arrivals of the specialized BRTC vehicles during that hour.
Commuters cited unpredictable schedules and a low total bus count as primary reasons for opting against the service. Asma Akter, a daily commuter waiting at Farmgate, explained that waiting specifically for a women-only bus posed a risk of arriving late for work. She stated that most workers board whichever vehicle arrives first, though they would happily use the dedicated service if one happened to pull up. Another commuter, Sonali Khatun, praised the initiative but noted that waiting 30 minutes without seeing a designated bus demonstrated the need for a larger fleet to make the service viable during rush hours.
The service was officially inaugurated on Tuesday morning at the BRTC Dhaka Truck Depot premises in Tejgaon. According to BRTC officials, the initial phase deploys 10 buses across nine primary routes in Dhaka, operating from 6:00 am to 9:00 pm across 114 designated stops. Four additional buses have been deployed in Chittagong and Bogra, with female drivers and conductors assigned to operate the fleet.
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