2019

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    Service Quality of Public Buses in Dhaka City: A Women’s Perspective
    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Islamic University of Technology, Gazipur, Bangladesh, 2019-11-15) Islam, Tanzila
    From the social and cultural perspective of Bangladesh, women’s involvement in economic activities outside the residence is increasing day by day. A large number of economically active women are working in Dhaka where they make a substantial part of their total daily trips on public buses. Nowadays, measuring the service quality of public buses from the perspective of female commuters is getting importance in print and electronic media because of their security issues in case of accessing public transport. This research presents a framework to portrait the prevailing scenario of service quality of public buses in Dhaka city experienced by its female commuters. The main objective of this study is to explore the perception of the women commuters by revealing their probable grounds of dissatisfaction by identifying various factors along with their interactions in affecting the service quality of public buses. The study expects to propose solutions to overcome the problems and social constraints faced by female commuters while using public buses. The focus group of this study is mainly the university going young female students and the female commuters involved in the present workforce to the city. This research is conducted integrating a qualitative approach with quantitative methods. The qualitative study is conducted through a semi-structured in-depth focus group discussion (FGD) involving around 50 female participants. The interviews are recorded and transcribed and the study applies text mining on transcribed data. Major complaints and compliments regarding existing service quality along with their underlying reasons, magnitudes, impacts, and consequences are extracted from text mining results. The participants’ perceptions are evaluated considering seven attributes – i) reliability, ii) comfort, iii) service, iv) responsiveness and empathy, v) safety and security, vi) affordability and vii) vehicle access. This guides in developing a service quality assessment framework customized from two well-known service quality models - SERVQUAL and RESCA. Based on that, a closed-ended questionnaire survey is conducted to evaluate individual trips where the respondents evaluated various aspects of a trip they have just completed by bus and rated the overall journey as ‘satisfactory’ or ‘unsatisfactory’. A total of 641 trips is evaluated by the respondents. In the quantitative approach, the Random Forest (RF) model is applied to the trip evaluation data to measure xii the importance of various factors along with their ranking. Then, a Classification and Regression Tree (CART) is developed to understand the dominances and interactions among factors that make the overall experience of public bus trip ‘satisfactory’ or ‘unsatisfactory’ to its female commuters. Analysis of the trip data reveals that around 67% of the respondents rate their overall trip experience to be unsatisfactory and only 33% of them are satisfied with the trip that they made with the public bus. Both the qualitative and quantitative analyses identify the boarding-alighting status and harassment issues as the most important variables which greatly influence the safety, security and comfort-related issues of female commuters. ‘Boarding alighting status’, ‘picking passengers (hurriedly/modestly)’, ‘female passenger harassment’, ‘noise status’, ‘harassment by the bus driver and/or helper’, ‘heat condition (inside temperature)’, ‘bad attitudes of male passenger’, ‘protestation against bad behavior’, ‘travel status (standing/seating/mixed)’, ‘waiting time for bus’ are identified as the top ten important variables from RF model. Finally, several suggestions, such as providing training to the bus staff, random inspection by law enforcement authorities, introducing more seats and buses exclusively for female passengers, etc. came from the respondents. Several policy recommendations are also proposed compiling the thoughts of the respondents and recommendations from the literature that are expected to arrest the attention of policymakers and assist them to re-plan the existing public transport policy in Dhaka city and cities alike.
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    Shear Strength of RC Beam Made with Recycled Brick Aggregate
    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Islamic University of Technology, Gazipur, Bangladesh, 2019-11-15) Shikdar, Md. Kamal Hossain
    In the last couple of decades, however, there has emerged greater importance on sustainability. Unfortunately, concrete, our most common construction material uses a significant amount of non-renewable resources. Consequently, recycled brick aggregate (RBA) has been considered as an alternative construction material to conventional natural aggregates. Most research to date has consisted only of the evaluation of the strength and durability of RBA mixtures, while only a limited number of studies have implemented full-scale testing of specimens constructed with RBA to determine its potential use in the industry. For this research, the shear strength of reinforced concrete (RC) beams made with recycled brick aggregate was investigated. As control specimens, RC beams made with virgin brick aggregate were also investigated. For the investigation, 32 reinforced concrete beams of size 200 mm by 300 mm by 2100 mm and 200 mm by 300 mm by 2400 mm were made. The variables were steel ratio (0.82% and 1.23%), shear span to depth ratio (2.04 and 2.45), and compressive strength of concrete (24 MPa and 29 MPa). In the shear span of the beam specimens, shear reinforcements were not provided and the beams were designed to ensure shear failure according to ACI 318-14. Shear strength of the beams without shear reinforcement was evaluated by four-point loading test. Shear strength of concrete beams was also evaluated by using different codes and fracture mechanics approaches. These results were compared with the experimental results. The results obtained from this study were also compared with the shear database. It is revealed that the RC beam made with recycled brick aggregate shows similar shear strength as of RC beam made with virgin brick aggregate. Existing code provisions, as well as fracture mechanics approach, can be used for predicting shear strength of concrete beams made with recycled brick aggregate.
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    Assessment of Safety Measures in RMG Sector of Bangladesh
    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Islamic University of Technology, Gazipur, Bangladesh, 2019-11-15) Islam, Md. Sajadul
    Bangladesh's Ready Made Garment (RMG) sector has experienced rapid growth over the past 20 years, reaching a point where it is now the largest export earner in the country and employs over 3.5 million workers. In the region of four million workers, about 55-60% of whom are women, the Bangladesh RMG industry runs around 3,600 active factories. At present, it is also the world's second largest exporter of ready-made garments. However, Fast and unregulated growth creates serious problem. There are significant problems with Occupational Safety and Health (OSH), working conditions, wage rates, union rights, and lack of effective human resource management in many factories. However, shortcomings in national labor policy, industrial relations and mechanisms of public dialog intensify and prolong non-compliance with national laws and regulations. Such challenges and vulnerabilities are at the core of the RMG sector's recent series of industrial tragedies. Two factory fires and a collapse of a building that housed five RMG factories took over 1,200 people's lives and wounded many more. This study highlights the work on the safety systems that being done in the RMG factories and their effect on the lives of the worker. The whole process contains inspections, design, installation and checks of systems that aid building, fire and electrical safety standards of the factories. This study put lights on all the initiatives both national and international that has been taken in response of recent tragedies in the RMG sector and analyses their effect on the factories. This study tires to identify the management practice that is being followed by factory, inspection bodies and others to ensure these systems are working effectively and serving the life safety requirements. Findings of this study show that good progress has been achieved on remediation of fire, electrical and building safety issues identified in the inspections made by international and national initiatives. Factories has done lot of work in the overall infrastructure of the factory to develop health and safety condition which in turn has affected workers understanding of the health and safety concerns of their factory in a positive way.