DOSSIER

urban transport system

Evolution of the transportation system

in Dubai
Abdul Ghaffar Chaudhry*

Public transport is vital for sustainable development. Dubai has embraced this challenge successfully
through its 6-pronged approach of development and is becoming a model of excellence for the region.

T he paradigm shift in cities’ strategic plans to become

smarter and sustainable cannot suppress the role of
transport sector. There is a permanent challenge to bal-
rant city of Dubai are the following:
• Managing traffic congestion
• Providing reliable and affordable public transport
ance society’s demand for more mobility and the public • Improving transportation safety
opinion – which is becoming increasingly intolerant of • Discouraging the use of cars and encouraging the use of
chronic delays – and the poor quality of some transport public transport.
services. As demand for transport keeps increasing, the • Bringing a behavioural change in a car-dominated soci-
community’s answer cannot be just to build new infra- ety, where average vehicle occupancy is 1.7 passengers per
structure and open up markets. Hence, an evolution is vehicle
already taking shape in the transport sector as cities are • Providing access to passengers with special needs
adopting accessibility-driven strategies in order to meet • Developing transportation legislations
travel demand and to achieve sustainable development. • Protecting the environment
Dubai is known for its pioneering development ap- In order to maintain the city’s economic prosperity and
proach in the Middle East and has some interesting lessons make Dubai a role model for public transport in the re-
to offer. This paper explores the evolution of the trans- gion, the transportation infrastructure of the city has been
portation system in the city of Dubai. In 2005, some of given priority by the visionary leadership of the Emirate.
the key transport challenges that Dubai faced were traffic Hence, to deal with all surface transportation issues, in
congestion, increasing car ownership, high road accident November 2005 the government of Dubai established
fatality rate, low public transport ridership, transport pol- an independent government body named Roads and
lution. It was estimated that about AED 4.6 billion were Transport Authority (RTA).
annually lost as value of time due to traffic congestion. The RTA is responsible for all surface transport systems in
car ownership in the Emirate reached 541 cars per 1000 Dubai, including planning and integration of transport
people, which is one of the highest compared to those of systems, licensing of drivers and vehicles, and transport
similar cities around the world. The road accident fatality policies and legislations. RTA has a flat structure to stream-
rate was 24 fatalities per 100,000 people in comparison line the decision-making process. The structure is based on
to 6 fatalities per 100,000 people in countries such as UK an agency model principle. There are three corporate-level
and Sweden. Additionally, the road accidents’ direct cost sectors (Strategy and Corporate Governance; Corporate
was around AED 0.87 billion per year. The public trans- Administration Support Services; and Corporate Technical
port comprised of buses only and constituted only 6% of Support Services) and five operational agencies (Traffic
the total trips that were made in the Emirate, compared and Roads Agency; Public Transport Agency; Rail Agency;
to 65% in Singapore and 87% in Hong Kong. Eventually, Licensing Agency; and Dubai Taxi Agency), each chaired
the high use of private vehicles increased transport pol- by an appointed CEO.
lution, with hydrocarbon emissions’ average reaching the The Roads and Transport Authority of Dubai took a
threshold of 800 ppm, which is much higher in compari- proactive and systematic approach to face the growing
son to other cities’ averages of 200-300 ppm,. challenges and improve the quality of life in the Emirate.
In summary, the transport challenges faced by the aspi- A comprehensive integrated strategic transportation plan

* Chief Engineer - Strategic Planning, Roads and Transport Authority, Dubai, UAE, Email: <[email protected]>.

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DOSSIER

was developed to assess the challenges and to prepare an Enhancement of the road network
action plan to address them. An important element of the Enhancement of road network is usually taking place by
Strategic Transport Plan is implementing transport poli- increasing its capacity and reducing delays at junctions.
cies and legislations to optimize the public transport and RTA has been working on both by widening the existing
the existing road network. road corridors, developing roads parallel to the strategic
Being the first city in the Middle East in pioneering a road corridors, creating ring roads around major develop-
paradigm shift from cars to public transport has not been ments, and providing free-flow junction layouts.
easy. A fundamental rethinking of transport policies and RTA has created some major strategic road corridors
legislations was required to remove financial bias towards – such as the Sheikh Zayed road, the Emirates road, the
the use of the automobile, particularly in areas where the Outer bypass road, the Al-Ittihad road and the Al-Khail
government has invested in high quality public transit. road – in the past few years to reduce the traffic congestion
This rethinking includes support for walking, biking and levels and improve journey times for the public. The latter
transit use, particularly in the areas immediately around is a significant socio-economic benefit for the community.
public transit stations. Additionally, more bridge crossings have been added to
RTA has taken a sustainable approach of managing the Dubai Creek to reduce the traffic burden on the exist-
travel demand through policies and legislations which fa- ing bridges and the tunnel. The number of traffic lanes
vour mass transit commute rather than the use of single crossing the Dubai Creek has been increased from 19 to
occupant vehicles. RTA’s strategic transportation plan is 48 between 2005 and 2011.
not limited to infrastructure projects but forms an inte- RTA has further plans to create main road corridors,
grated balanced approach and covers six major areas as ring roads, and interchanges in order to meet future devel-
indicated in Figure 1. opment needs, as well as to provide dedicated bus lanes in
1. Enhancement of the road network order to improve journey time of public buses. The road
2. Development and enhancement of public transporta- network in Dubai has increased from 8,715 lane-km in
tion system 2005 to 11,208 lane-km in 2010.
3. Enhancement of pedestrian and cyclist networks and
facilities Development and enhancement of public
4. Development of policies and legislations to overcome transportation system
congestion and to promote sustainable transportation A main pillar of RTA’s strategic transportation plan is the
5. Development of intelligent transportation technologies development of an integrated public transportation sys-
6. Enhancement of traffic and safety awareness tem. RTA’s ambitious project of Dubai metro and bus net-

Metro & Public

Road Network
Transport

Safe and Smooth

Transport for All
“
Intelligent
Transport Systems
” Pedestrian &
Cycling Network

Awareness
Policies & Legislation
Campaigns

Figure 1 | Six main areas of Dubai strategic transportation plan

8 Network Industries Quarterly | vol. 14 | no 1 | 2012

 DOSSIER
work has been completed and the benefits of the system Enhancement of pedestrian and cyclist networks and
are becoming real. facilities
RTA has successfully started the operation of its Metro RTA has long realized the importance of the concept of
Red and Green lines. The Red Line is 52km long with 29 sustainable transport for the future of Dubai and has pro-
Stations and the Green Line is 22km long with 18 sta- vided 72 grade separated pedestrian crossings. Further-
tions. At the moment, RTA is focusing its efforts on the more, a comprehensive bicycle network master plan for
delivery of the Al-Sofouh tram system, which will comple- more than 580km of main cycle tracks is developed and
ment the metro. is being implemented in phases. A pedestrian safety and
The integration of different public transportation mobility plan is being devised for the following three years
modes is also accounted for in the strategic transporta- to reduce the traffic accident rate and eliminate accident
tion plan. RTA aims to create more multi-mode stations, black spots from the transportation network.
for ease in transfer between metro, buses, taxis, and water The pedestrian and cycling infrastructure requires im-
transport. provement in the traffic legislation to support non-mo-
RTA’s long-term ultimate plan involves construction of torized road users. A pedestrian safety and mobility plan
318km metro network, 270km of Tram network and new is also devised for the following three years to reduce the
bus and water transportation routes. RTA is also working traffic accident rate and to eliminate accident black spots
towards the concept of Transit Oriented Developments from the transportation network.
(TODs) in the city in coordination with urban planning
entities for safe and efficient accessibility in order to ad- Development of Policies and Legislations to overcome
dress the need of a sustainable model for transport policy congestion and promote sustainable transportation
to be integrated with land-use policies as suggested by One of the main pillars of RTA’s strategy is to introduce
Santos et al. (2010). policies that will firstly reduce the need to travel by car
and secondly make best use of the existing infrastruc-
ture. As the research by Eriksson, Garvill, and Nordlund
(2008) indicates, combining policies is very important for
increasing public ac-
ceptability, especially
when push measures
(aiming to make car
use less attractive by,
for example, raising
taxes or charges) and
pull measures (aim-
ing to improve al-
ternative options to
cars by, for example,
improving public
transport) are imple-
mented in the same
policy package.
RTA has devel-
oped an overall Mo-
bility Management
Plan, which includes
a comprehensive
toolkit for optimiz-
ing the existing ca-
pacity of the road
infrastructure. Inter-
Figure 2 | Evolution of Dubai’s transportation system national best practic-
es show that all the

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DOSSIER

developed cities avail the benefits of mobility management • Traffic signal control system SCOOT.
plans such as reducing the time wasted on roads allowing • Central parking control system.
people to use their time productively and to contribute to • Journey planner system
the development of the country’s economy. RTA has planned around 20 multi-modal ITS pack-
RTA has successfully implemented the concept of mo- ages on short, medium and long term basis, which will
bility management plans with leading private companies further optimize the socio-economic returns from the ex-
managing the demand and optimizing the existing capac- isting infrastructure. Some of them are the following:
ity. Also, RTA is presently studying the implementation • Multimodal control and command centre
of other transport policies that will promote the public • Shared CCTV infrastructure
transport system and will bring behavioral change, hence • On-trip information distribution through signs, mo-
will shift people from private vehicles to public transport biles, PDA and terminals
(mode share is 9.4%). • Demand responsive transport service
Some of the successfully implemented policies are the • Vehicle emissions measure and weigh-in-motion
following: road tolling, parking control, dedicated bus-
lanes, car registration schemes, car pooling services (Share- Enhance traffic and safety awareness
kni), company transport schemes (Awselni) and awards RTA’s care for safety can be shown from the fact that safety
for the promotion of sustainable transport initiatives by is embedded into the authority’s vision. The global trend
the private sector (Dubai Award for Sustainable Trans- of rising automobile use puts increasing pressure on urban
port). Car sharing is one of the policies that can make roadways as cities face increasing traffic congestion.
a small but cost-effective contribution in reducing traffic Development patterns that focus exclusively on the
levels and pollution (Bonsall, 2002). movement of automobiles not only have led to serious
More specifically, there are two major Park’n’Ride traffic problems, but also have safety, health and
facilities constructed at major metro peripheral stations, environmental consequences.
around 800 air-conditioned bus shelters constructed, RTA wants to provide Dubai residents with the basic
memoranda of understanding have already been signed right to walk without unnecessary inconvenience or fear
with leading private companies to provide bus services for their personal safety. To achieve this goal, it has
and three annual award ceremonies for Dubai Award for implemented a number of safety campaigns and initiatives
Sustainable Transport have been successfully held. The for the road users in coordination with the Dubai Police,
geographic reach of the latter is being extended to other other government authorities and the private sector. Some
countries in the region. of the implemented safety and awareness campaigns are
RTA carefully monitors the phased implementation the following:
of the above transport policies and amends its plans ac- • Cyclists and pedestrian campaigns
cordingly in lieu of the changing economical and social • Speed reduction awareness campaigns
conditions. • Seat belt campaigns
• Red-signal crossing campaign
Development of intelligent transportation • Truck safety campaigns
technologies? • Safety campaigns (HASEB)
The importance of ITS is clearly identified by RTA, which • Speed management through engineering and
has developed a comprehensive ITS strategy. The strategy enforcement measures
integrates all the available transport and communication • Standardized conceptual designs and layouts for
systems, and identifies the ITS programs and projects that pedestrian footpaths
are needed to optimize Dubai transport system efficiency. • Car-free zones
RTA has made significant progress in utilizing the in- • Pedestrian crossings near public transit
telligent transportation system in order to maximize effi-
ciency and socio-economic returns from Dubai’s transport Conclusion
system. The following list includes some of the systems In conclusion, RTA’s journey of development continues as
implemented: conceptualized in Figure 2. RTA has comprehensive plans
• Unified automatic fare collection system and policies to achieve its vision to make Dubai an acces-
• Dynamic navigation system. sible and environment friendly city.
• Variable message signs. Dubai pioneered the concept of public transport in the

10 Network Industries Quarterly | vol. 14 | no 1 | 2012

 DOSSIER
MENA region by realising early the need for sustainable References
development. Many countries in the region are following Bonsall, P. (2002), Car share and car clubs: Potential impacts, Final
report for DTLR and the Motorists Forum, Institute for Transport
this path and have announced their strategic transporta-
Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds.
tion plans with mass transit as the backbone of their Dubai Strategic Transportation Plan (2006), Roads & Transport
transportation system. However, policymakers must ap- Authority, Dubai, U.A.E.
proach the challenge of creating a sustainable mobility Eriksson, L., Garvill, J., and Nordlund, A.M. (2008), ‘Acceptability of
model for the future by working on the 6-pronged ap- single and combined transport policy measures: the importance of
environmental and policy specific beliefs’, Transportation Research
proach discussed in the paper. Part A: Policy and Practice, 42 (8): 1117-1128.
Santos, G., Behrendt, H., and Teytelboym, A. (2010), ‘Part II:
Policy instruments for sustainable road transport’ Research in
Transportation Economics, 28: 46-91.

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