CASE Traffic Signal Automation
This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.
13 sourced claims on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.
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✎ Reclassified 13 Oct 2026 Status changed: cancelled → completed. What changed →
World Bank money put new automated signals at 29 Dhaka intersections and some Tk112 crore into lights and junctions. They went largely unused: police kept directing traffic by hand.
what does this mean?
The strongest source is press reporting; no primary evaluation was located. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,216 documented projects · 🏙️ 9 more in Dhaka · 🚦 Traffic management guide · 🚲 Mobility projects
Dhaka's World Bank-funded CASE project put new automated signals at 29 intersections and repaired others — some Tk112 crore went into lights and intersection works between 2010 and 2018 — but the systems went largely unused as police kept directing traffic by hand. A successor semi-automatic system — funded by the two city corporations and engineered by BUET — went live at seven intersections on 30 August 2025.
📊 Impact
The automated signals at 29 intersections went largely unused, with police continuing to direct traffic by hand. The World Bank's completion report of September 2019 had recorded the 29 intersections as installed and operational, and a 9.5 percent increase in vehicular traffic through selected signalised intersections. A Daily Star reporter who visited at least 30 intersections found the lights working at only six (January 2020). In February 2025 The Business Standard reported that, except at the Gulshan-2 intersection, the CASE signals were not operational anywhere, citing a government impact evaluation (IMED, 2022-23) that called the money spent a complete waste. By March 2026 the city-funded successor ran at seven intersections, with 15 more still uninstalled; in August 2026 Dhaka South City Corporation began trialling a fully automated, BUET-built system at Shahbagh.
🎓 Lesson
Hardware alone doesn't fix traffic: without operator training, maintenance budgets, and integration with existing police practice, automated signals fall out of use and traffic reverts to manual control. The World Bank counted the signals as delivered; reporters found them dark or ignored. A delivered output is not a working system.
Sources
Show 3 more sourcesShow fewer
📅 How old is the evidence?
Two clocks, kept apart: when this entry’s sources were published, and what has happened to its record in the atlas. Documented span: 2012–2019. 7 of 8 sources carry a publication date, from 26 September 2019 to 13 August 2026.
When the sources were published
- World Bank · international organisationWorld Bank — CASE Project completion report (authority)
- The Daily Star · pressThe Daily Star — Unutilised Traffic Lights: Money wasted, streets made dangerous (press)
- The Daily Star · pressThe Daily Star (press)
- The Business Standard · pressThe Business Standard (press) · updated 11 February 2025
- The Business Standard · pressThe Business Standard — Semi-automatic traffic signals to be launched at 7 Dhaka intersections tomorrow
- The Daily Star · pressThe Daily Star — Pilot project shows promise, but delays stall wider rollout
- The Daily Star · pressThe Daily Star — Automated traffic signal system debuts at Dhaka's Shahbagh
What happened to this record
- Entered the record
- Sources last read
- Status changed: cancelled → completed
Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 13 claims with their sources · the forensic record
Evidence file · public beta 13 addressable claims, 8 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The file is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.
Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 13
The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.
clm-265463207cb2084e
descriptive
World Bank-funded CASE project
Sources carrying this claim
clm-a820434a34f0e696
quantitative
put new automated signals at 29 intersections and repaired others
Sources carrying this claim
clm-e2da0a91ec4908d7
quantitative
some Tk112 crore went into lights and intersection works between 2010 and 2018
Sources carrying this claim
clm-1001043503b8619c
descriptive
but the systems went largely unused as police kept directing traffic by hand
Sources carrying this claim
clm-16fe619832091ca2
quantitative
A successor semi-automatic system — funded by the two city corporations and engineered by BUET — went live at seven intersections on 30 August 2025.
Sources carrying this claim
clm-1774ebaaa8729b15
quantitative
The automated signals at 29 intersections went largely unused, with police continuing to direct traffic by hand.
Sources carrying this claim
clm-cb880c3fe42fe318
quantitative
The World Bank's completion report of September 2019 had recorded the 29 intersections as installed and operational, and a 9.5 percent increase in vehicular traffic through selected signalised intersections.
Sources carrying this claim
clm-0927259ca5707cb3
quantitative
A Daily Star reporter who visited at least 30 intersections found the lights working at only six (January 2020).
Sources carrying this claim
clm-5dea86a9a1910080
quantitative
In February 2025 The Business Standard reported that, except at the Gulshan-2 intersection, the CASE signals were not operational anywhere, citing a government impact evaluation (IMED, 2022-23) that called the money spent a complete waste.
Sources carrying this claim
clm-11c0c2fd29b3db8d
quantitative
By March 2026 the city-funded successor ran at seven intersections, with 15 more still uninstalled
Sources carrying this claim
clm-b5eb8a113f7de2c4
quantitative
in August 2026 Dhaka South City Corporation began trialling a fully automated, BUET-built system at Shahbagh
Sources carrying this claim
clm-5d90e2597a345114
descriptive
without operator training, maintenance budgets, and integration with existing police practice, automated signals fall out of use and traffic reverts to manual control
Sources carrying this claim
clm-322ba08ac287c886
descriptive
The World Bank counted the signals as delivered; reporters found them dark or ignored.
Sources carrying this claim
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders
This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.
Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.
sha256:dd1f762942095dd3b51184799e68917d2e419d03ae2e9b5667c292f0619c0944
- 13
- of 13 claims mapped
- 8
- source dossiers
- 7
- publication dates recorded
- 0
- archives linked
- 0
- exact locators
- 0
- content captures hashed
Governance facts carried by the record
- Operator
- Dhaka North and South City Corporations (installation) and Dhaka Metropolitan Police (operation)
- Actor types
- city-government, national-government
- Funding model
- public
- Funding description
- World Bank IDA credit (CASE project: US$62.2M plus US$35M additional financing, across all components)
- Cost
- ≈Tk112 crore (signals and intersection works, 2010–2018)
- Ownership
- Not recorded
- Decision rights
- Not recorded
- Exit conditions
- Not recorded
8 source dossiers
World Bank — CASE Project completion report (authority)
- Stable source ID
src-3a4b58ff50a691f6- Publisher
- Name not classified · documents1.worldbank.org
- Type / language
- pdf · language not classified
- Published
- 2019-09-26
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-10-11
- Dossier created
- 2026-10-13
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
The World Bank's Implementation Completion and Results Report on the Clean Air and Sustainable Environment (CASE) project: a US$62.2 million IDA credit plus US$35 million additional financing, closed 31 March 2019. It records new traffic signals at 29 intersections and 91 intersections with operational signals, reports a 9.5 percent increase in vehicular traffic at selected signalised intersections, and describes the slow handover of the signals to Dhaka Metropolitan Police (29 intersections by 31 August 2019).
The Daily Star — Unutilised Traffic Lights: Money wasted, streets made dangerous (press)
- Stable source ID
src-4b97d055cde34b9e- Publisher
- Name not classified · thedailystar.net
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2020-01-12
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-10-11
- Dossier created
- 2026-10-13
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Reports that Tk 112 crore of World Bank funding was spent between 2010 and 2018 under CASE on repairing and installing 100 traffic lights and other intersection infrastructure, that the lights were handed to Dhaka Metropolitan Police, which lacked monitoring and maintenance capacity, and that the reporter found lights working at only six of at least 30 intersections visited.
The Daily Star (press)
- Stable source ID
src-7cfcb72766bad65d- Publisher
- Name not classified · thedailystar.net
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2022-01-15
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-10-11
- Dossier created
- 2026-10-13
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Overview of Dhaka's signal projects since 2001: Tk 119 crore spent over 15 years; solar panels and countdown timers added at 70 crossings in 2011–2013 under a World Bank-funded project whose trial run failed, after which traffic police returned to manual control.
- Claims linked
New Age (press)
- Stable source ID
src-fa1d7f143c25d3c1- Publisher
- Name not classified · newagebd.net
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- Not recorded
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-10-11
- Dossier created
- 2026-10-13
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Reports that the city corporations installed solar panels and countdown timers at 70 crossings and 29 new signals under the CASE project in 2012–13, that a 2014 decision to hand signal operation to Dhaka Metropolitan Police went unimplemented for years, and that police control traffic by hand.
- Claims linked
The Business Standard (press)
- Stable source ID
src-9a4e384af5b3533a- Publisher
- Name not classified · tbsnews.net
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2025-02-03
- Updated
- 2025-02-11
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-10-11
- Dossier created
- 2026-10-13
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Says CASE ran from 2009 to 2019 under the Department of Environment, the city corporations and DTCA, and installed 100 automatic traffic signal systems for about Tk100 crore; except at Gulshan-2, none is operational. Cites the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division's impact evaluation report (2022-23), which found the automatic system ineffective and the money a complete waste.
The Business Standard — Semi-automatic traffic signals to be launched at 7 Dhaka intersections tomorrow
- Stable source ID
src-601c9c310c9b7d5a- Publisher
- Name not classified · tbsnews.net
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2025-08-29
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-10-11
- Dossier created
- 2026-10-13
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
DTCA press note: a semi-automatic signal system launches at seven named intersections on 30 August 2025 as a pilot within a 22-intersection High Court–Airport scheme, financed by the two city corporations with technical support from BUET.
- Claims linked
The Daily Star — Pilot project shows promise, but delays stall wider rollout
- Stable source ID
src-9f838f6628a8f2b3- Publisher
- Name not classified · thedailystar.net
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2026-03-14
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-10-11
- Dossier created
- 2026-10-13
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Seven months after the 30 August 2025 inauguration, traffic flows better at the seven equipped intersections but drivers still run reds; signals at the other 15 pilot intersections were not yet installed because of procurement and administrative delays (BUET's Prof Moazzem Hossain).
- Claims linked
The Daily Star — Automated traffic signal system debuts at Dhaka's Shahbagh
- Stable source ID
src-907a3335f4853c28- Publisher
- Name not classified · thedailystar.net
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2026-08-13
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-10-11
- Dossier created
- 2026-10-13
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Dhaka South City Corporation launches a fully automated signal system on a trial basis at Shahbagh with BUET technical support; the pilot is to cover 20 key intersections initially, with 50 more planned.
- Claims linked
Known limits of this file
- Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
- Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
- A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
- The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.
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📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “CASE Traffic Signal Automation” — Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/dhaka-traffic-control/ (last verified 2026-10-11). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.
