1.5 lakh vehicles cross Bangabandhu Bridge in four days, over Tk11cr collected in tolls

Over 1.5 lakh vehicles crossed the Bangabandhu Bridge in the last four days till 8am on Friday, said Bangladesh Bridge Authority officials.

During the period, the bridge authorities collected Tk11.18 crore as tolls from these vehicles.

Around 17-18 thousand vehicles cross the bridge on a normal day. But the pressure of traffic increased because of Eid, especially from last Sunday but it started to calm down a bit since Friday morning, said sources at the Bangabandhu Bridge Toll Plaza.

"Around 56,128 vehicles crossed the bridge in 32 hours from 12:00pm on Wednesday to 8:00am on Friday. Of this, 37,184 vehicles headed towards North Bengal. Where, 18, 944 vehicles entered Dhaka from North Bengal. A total of Tk3.9 crore in tolls has been collected during this period," said Ahsanul Kabir Pavel, executive engineer at the Bangladesh Bridge Authority.

Before this, over 36 thousand vehicles crossed the bridge from 12am on Tuesday to 12am on Wednesday. The toll collected was Tk2.7 crore.

Prior to that, the toll collected was Tk2.44 crore from 30 thousand vehicles crossing the bridge from 12:00pm on Monday to 12:00pm on Tuesday.

From 12:00pm on Sunday to 12:00pm on Monday, 22,485 vehicles crossed the bridge, with Tk2.9 crore collected in tolls.

According to police sources, compared to other times, there was not much traffic on Dhaka-Tangail-Bangabandhu Bridge highway this year. Due to Eid holidays and the 13-km road from Elenga to Bangabandhu Bridge being made one-way, traffic jams could be avoided.

"On Friday, there was not much traffic on the highway from Tangail to the bridge. Vehicles were moving smoothly," said Shafiqul Islam, passenger of a Bogra-bound bus.

Zahid Hasan, in-charge of the Elenga outpost of the Highway Police, said a car broke down on the bridge at night which caused some traffic jam in the bridge area, but that cleared up by noon.