Md Easir Arafat

Easir is a PhD researcher in the Centre for Transport and Society. His PhD project explores the causes of traffic violation and road collision in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Easir has experience in the field of Road Transport in Bangladesh. Before starting the PhD at UWE Bristol, he worked as project manager assistant for Central Hall Westminster, managing a range of projects including the “ECR Poverty Summit” tackling poverty globally and “Parkingtopia” resolving parking issues and improvements in the UK.

Easir has an MSc management with Project Management (Distinction) from BPP University. He also successfully completed a Masters in Business Administration from Anglia Ruskin University and a BA (Hons) in Business Management from Glyndwr University, Wales.

Areas of expertise

• Microsoft Project
• Risk register and analysis
• Mixed methods research
• Quantitative research methods including questionnaire design, online surveys, statistical analysis with SPSS
• Qualitative research method including semi-structured interviews, workshop facilitation, analysis with NVivo

Research project

Project title

An investigation of road collisions and traffic violations in Dhaka.

Supervisory team

• Professor John Parkin
• Dr Paul Pilkington
• Dr Ben Clark

Start date

July 2017

Finish date

June 2020

Project summary

The overall aim of the research is to investigate road collisions in Dhaka where traffic violation is a cause, and with a view to understanding whether traffic law and its enforcement needs to be further developed. The findings will be able to inform policy development and action to reduce road traffic collisions and deaths and injuries.

Research questions

1. What are the key determinants of road collisions in Dhaka and what role is played by law violation?

2. Why do road users violate traffic law?

3. What are the perceptions of the law generally and traffic law in particular?

4. How well are people educated about road law relative to road safety?

5. How do Bangladesh traffic laws differ from others worldwide?

6. How do the Dhaka police, traffic engineers and the courts view and enforce the law?

Method

Research question 1 will be addressed through an analysis of secondary data sourced from government statistics and the publications of the Dhaka Accident Research Institute. A questionnaire based survey will be developed to addressed research question 2 mostly focused on perception of law and educating road users. Studying road safety law and their practices in 6 countries from three different levels of economic development (low, medium and high income countreis) will be compared to Dhaka, Bangladesh to answer research question three. Finally, semi-structured interviews will be conducted among stakeholder groups including traffic engineers from the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, lawyers, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), insurers and the Dhaka Accident Research Institute (ARI) to understand how different authorities perceive the road safety law and enforce them in practice.