The authorities in Bangladesh are but to combine nationwide emergency helpline 999 in the methods of ridesharing corporations owing to a lack of coordination between the related authorities companies.
According to the Ridesharing Services Guideline 2017, an SOS, popularly used as Save our Souls, the system must be built-in into the applying to ship info of the riders and passengers’ Global Positioning System routinely to 999.
Officials of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority stated that Bangladesh Police was scheduled to combine the 999 quantity in the ridesharing corporations’ methods.
Designated officers of Bangladesh Police stated that the supply for the bills for the mixing work must be agreed between the 2 ministries involved – the highway transport ministry and residential ministry.
The BRTA officers, nevertheless, stated that they didn’t get any demand for funds from the police but.
Against this backdrop, the BRTA is now in search of alternative routes to introduce the system with the technical assist of the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre.
Introduced in 2016, the app-based ridesharing providers, significantly in Dhaka and different metropolitan cities, have gained recognition and change into a full-time supply of earnings for many individuals.
The cupboard authorised the Ridesharing Services Guideline 2017 in January 2018, which got here into impact on March 8, 2018, permitting business use of non-public automobiles by way of app-based transport providers throughout the nation.
The BRTA in April of the identical 12 months launched the registration course of and the method of receiving and processing purposes and distribution of enlistment certificates for motor automobiles underneath ridesharing providers.
BRTA chairman Nur Mohammad Mazumder informed New Age Wednesday that police have the duty to combine the nationwide emergency quantity in the ridesharing corporations’ servers.
Looking for an alternate, the BRTA lately mentioned the matter with the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre, he stated.
‘The NTMC officials said that they could do the integration work. We will soon call a meeting with officials of police, the centre and ridesharing companies for a final decision by February,’ he stated.
Mohammad Tabarak Ullah, further deputy inspector common of police and chief of the 999 nationwide emergency service, informed New Age that there was no improvement in integrating the 999 quantity with the servers of the ridesharing providers.
He defined that the BRTA ready the rule for the ridesharing corporations and offered licences to the businesses and the house ministry had no reference to these.
‘For the integration, we need an installation, which will cost around Tk 80 to Tk 90 lakh,’ he stated, including, ‘where we’ll get this cash?’
Tabarak Ullah stated that if the highway transport ministry communicates with the house ministry and the house ministry instructs his unit then the 999 unit will work in line with that.
‘From our side, nothing is possible unless the home ministry allocates money for 999-unit to do the work,’ he added.
BRTA chairman Nur Mohammad Mazumder stated that the highway ministry has already given letters to the house ministry in this regard and they didn’t get any demand for funds from the police.
The authorities insisted on system integration to test totally different crimes, together with kidnapping and hijacking. Officials stated unlawful offline providers additionally pose danger for passengers utilizing ridesharing providers.
Additional DIG Tabarak Ullah added that typically they obtain calls in 999 from ridesharing app customers alleging kidnapping makes an attempt. But they don’t preserve separate information for crime held in ridesharing automobiles.
Millat Baki, senior supervisor of one of the ridesharing providers O Bhai Solutions Limited, informed New Age that they’d developed the IT-related services to combine the nationwide emergency quantity in their server.
‘Whenever the police will want access to our system we are ready to give that access,’ he stated.
Md Shahriar Rubayet, an assistant director of Chaldal Limited, one of the businesses to acquire a licence from BRTA to function the ridesharing providers, stated that they’ve already developed an SOS system in their app Chalo to provide entry to police.
Both Millat and Shahriar stated that round a 12 months in the past they joined the police in a assembly in this regard however there have been no progress since then.
The matter was mentioned on the month-to-month coordination assembly of the Road Transport and Highways Division on January 16.
Till November 29, 2021, a whole of 15 corporations bought the ultimate approval from the BRTA to offer ridesharing providers.
Among these corporations, 14 acquired enlistment certificates from the BRTA.
Till December 2021, underneath these 14 corporations, a whole of 27,048 motor automobiles took enlistment certificates for offering the providers.
The corporations are –Uber Bangladesh Limited, Pathao Limited, O Bhai Solutions Limited, Shohoz Limited, Akij Online Limited, Pickme Ltd, Computer Network System Limited, Chaldal Limited, Akash Technology Limited, Segesta Limited, Digital Ride Limited, Easier Technologies Ltd, Jatri Limited and Buddy Limited.