Mojammel Mia has watched the Purbachal bus depot from behind his tea stall since the day it opened, and for the first six weeks, there was not much to watch. He kept his shop going anyway, because his house is nearby. Then September came, and the depot that had sat half empty since July of this year, suddenly filled up with buses, drivers, mechanics and customers, and his sales boomed.
His tea stall is a small, almost accidental barometer for something much larger: a government relocation plan that spent a month and a half looking like it might fail, before it finally started working.
The plan itself is simple to describe but has proven hard to execute. Mohakhali Inter-district Bus Terminal, opened in 1984, serves as the main hub for buses heading to the country's northern and north-eastern districts, and it was built to hold around 200 vehicles.
For years, hundreds more sat parked on the roads outside, waiting for departure slots that might be hours away, turning the surrounding streets into a permanent bottleneck.
On 15 July this year, the authorities launched a fix. Long-distance buses would be moved out of Mohakhali entirely and sent instead to a temporary depot in Sector 3 of the Gutia area in Purbachal New Town, several kilometres away.
They would wait there, off the main roads, until close to their scheduled departure, then head into Mohakhali just long enough to pick up passengers and leave. On paper, it promised to cut unnecessary bus movement in the capital's most congested terminal area. In practice, almost no buses showed up in the beginning.
What changed between that quiet launch and the depot Mojammel Mia now describes as bustling was not the plan. It was the plumbing, literally. Authorities spent the early weeks adding rest areas for bus staff, showers, toilets, food arrangements and security, while traffic police worked to keep the depot functioning day to day.
By last month, the numbers had turned: an average of 150 to 200 vehicles now arrive at Purbachal every day.
Built in 1984 for 200 buses, vehicles at Mohakhali terminal overflowed onto surrounding streets On 15 July 2026, authorities directed long-distance buses to wait at Purbachal Sector 3 Adding rest areas, toilets, showers, and security turned the once-empty Purbachal depot into a success Purbachal now handles 150 to 200 buses daily alongside active repair workshops Mohakhali terminal restricted to vehicles with departures within 2 to 3 hours
Comfort wins over policy
A visit to the site now finds well over a hundred buses from operators including Sathi Enterprise, Jamjam Travels, Shah Fateh Ali, Ena, Kazi Paribahan and more than a dozen others, serving routes to Mymensingh, Tangail, Netrokona, Sherpur, Jamalpur, Kishoreganj, Brahmanbaria, Bogura, Sirajganj, Naogaon, Gaibandha, Rangpur, and Cox's Bazar.
On the depot's eastern side, workshops run at full pace. Body repairers, mechanics, painters, electricians, and leaf-spring specialists move between vehicles undergoing engine work, repainting and window replacement, turning a holding area into something closer to a working bus yard.
For the drivers who resisted the move at first, the appeal eventually came down to comfort rather than policy.
Saddam Hossain, who drives for Nirala Super, did not warm to Purbachal immediately. "At first, I did not like coming here. There were problems with showers, toilets and food," he said. "Most of these problems have now been resolved. We had no rest facilities for our staff in Mohakhali, but there is a rest area for us here. We are finding the Purbachal bus depot very convenient."
Shohel Kibriya, driver of United Transport, measures the difference in a currency every long-haul driver understands: How often he has to move the bus. At Mohakhali, with its cramped entry and endless jostling for space, he says he would have shifted the vehicle back and forth at least 50 times in a single wait.
At Purbachal, after arriving the previous night, he had not started the engine once. "There are all sorts of problems at Mohakhali Bus Terminal," he said. "It is difficult to get in, there is very little space and there are too many buses. Traffic jams develop on the roads, and the police harass us."
Security, not just space, pushed some drivers toward the new depot too. Shohel described a recent theft at Mohakhali, a broken window, someone climbing in, cash and a mobile phone taken from him and his supervisor.
"We cannot keep our belongings properly secured inside the buses," he said, before adding that the arrangements at Purbachal are a clear improvement.
Shah Poran, a supervisor with Ena Transport, frames the shift in logistical terms. His crew drops passengers at Mohakhali, then drives straight to Purbachal rather than lingering near the terminal.
"There is no traffic congestion here, and security is adequate," he said. "There are no additional charges, and the authorities are providing us with sufficient support. We do not have to pay to use the toilets or showers."
Even satisfied users have a list of what still needs fixing, and Poran's is specific. When bus numbers spike, the rest facilities cannot keep up with demand, toilets and showers are relatively few, and cleanliness slips. "If more attention is paid to these issues, the number of buses using the depot will increase further," he said, framing the gaps less as complaints than as the next obvious upgrades.
"At first, I did not like coming here. There were problems with showers, toilets and food. Most of these problems have now been resolved. We had no rest facilities for our staff in Mohakhali, but there is a rest area for us here. We are finding the Purbachal bus depot very convenient." Saddam Hossain, bus driver, Nirala Super
Mohakhali, free at last
Back in Mohakhali, the effect of all this is showing up in a place the depot itself was never meant to touch directly: the daily grind of local bus drivers who never go anywhere near Purbachal.
Abdul Mannan, who drives for Gulistan-Gazipur Paribahan, says, "Previously, long-distance buses parked along the roads, leaving little space for local buses to move. The situation has improved now, and we can move through the area more easily than before."
Shahidul Islam, a driver with Balaka Paribahan, describes the same shift from a slightly different angle, measuring it in how smoothly traffic now flows rather than how much space has opened up.
"There used to be severe congestion around Mohakhali, particularly when buses lined up on the roads," he said. "Now that many long-distance buses are kept at Purbachal, traffic flows more smoothly, and it is easier for us to enter and leave the terminal area."
Mahbubur Rahman, a supervisor with Azmeri Glory, puts it more simply still: buses that once sat idle on the road, blocking everyone else, are no longer there to block anything.
Yusuf Mirza, acting vice-president of the Dhaka District Bus-Minibus Road Transport Workers' Union, has watched the policy from inside the system meant to enforce it, and he does not pretend the rollout was smooth. "There were some problems at first, but since last month, most buses from Mohakhali have been using the Purbachal depot," he said.
The numbers back him up: 150 to 200 buses arriving daily, with roughly 80 to 90 typically present at Purbachal at any given time, kept there specifically to stop roadside parking from creeping back.
The rule now governing Mohakhali is strict and deliberately narrow. Only buses scheduled to depart within two to three hours are allowed to remain at the terminal, Mirza said. Everything else waits at Purbachal instead. "We no longer allow buses to remain parked on the roads," he said. "Mohakhali Terminal is now much clearer."
Officials on the ground describe a depot still finding its rhythm but clearly past its early stumble.
Traffic Sub-Inspector Nur Alam, on duty at Purbachal, counted 151 vehicles arriving on a single day, more than 200 once workshop visits and the dumping area were included, with 76 still present even after scheduled departures had left.
Sub-Inspector Masud Rana, officer-in-charge of the depot, described a similar trajectory. "We have been receiving a good response since last month," he said. "An average of 150 to 200 buses visit the depot every day. We hope the number will increase further over time."
None of this has erased Mohakhali's congestion outright, and the depot's own staff are the first to list what still needs work: more toilets, more showers, cleanliness, enough rest space for a crowd that keeps growing.
But three months after a launch that looked, for a while, like it might quietly fail, the road outside Mohakhali is visibly clearer, the buses that once sat idle there have somewhere else to wait, and a tea seller watching it all from his small stall has the sales figures to prove something finally shifted.