At a Dubai mall this weekend? Add parking time

Summer is here and that means outdoor life is making place for activities in the convenience of a running air conditioner, plenty of hydrating consumption available and enough to see and do. The favourite hangout of Dubai residents and visitors: Shopping malls.

Catering to its inhabitants' needs, there is a wide variety of malls set up in even the furthest corners of the emirate. To make mall leisure attractive, parking is free under most circumstances. But these benefits have a downside, too. Trying to find a parking spot can be time consuming.

Take Dubai Mall for example. The largest and most popular mall, it offers its visitors three parking sections totalling 14,000 parking slots. On a random Sunday afternoon, two of these domains are close to fully occupied. Fashion parking was occupied by 94 per cent, while Grand Parking saw a 76 per cent occupancy rate and Cinema Parking occupancy of 34 per cent yesterday.

And that is on a weekday. On weekends, occupancy rates reach a maximum and it is not unusual for all parking sections to have only a handful of available slots. The visitor ends up driving circles hoping for a car to pop out as he passes.

"There used to be an area where very few people parked their car, but even that area has been discovered and is now often fully occupied. I am not going to point out where it is, I am hoping to keep parking there," narrates S. Kumar, a frequent mall visitor.

Other malls in Dubai do not cope any better with the high demand of visitors coming by car. Mall of the Emirates, Ibn Battuta Mall, Wafi Center and even Outlet Mall face similar scenarios.

"Last time I visited Ibn Battuta Mall I decided to park somewhere on the pavement after driving around for more than 20 minutes. When I returned to my car, I had a fine!" says Maria Medela, a Dubai resident.

"It is frustrating, because these malls cannot easily be reached by public transportation," points out Joseph Bay. “Take Outlet Mall; you could take a bus but that is quite a hassle. I come there by car but I always find it difficult to find a parking space.”

Mall of the Emirates is currently undergoing a parking lot expansion, with 1,300 additional slots promised by mid-2015. Meanwhile, construction work has limited the available options, and visitors are faced with a myriad of redirections, closed partitions and despair finding an empty spot.

The Road and Transport Authority (RTA) earlier this year in cooperation with Dubai Mall launched a mall parking feature on its Smart Parking app.
 
At any point in time, the app shows how many slots are available and in which section. Unfortunately, it does not lead the motorist to the spot, as the internet connection is disrupted once entering the garage.

The objective is that not only Dubai Mall parking, but every private parking in Dubai will eventually be integrated with the app, pointed the RTA out at the time of the launch.

“Dubai Mall has taken the lead, but we are hoping for other malls to follow the example. We are in talks with several malls now, and encourage all private parking holders to do the same,” said Abdulla Al Madani, CEO of the Corporate Technical Support Services Sector at RTA.

Although apps such as these may facilitate the visitor in planning a night (or day) out, it does not reduce the time spent on the looking for a parking slot. For this, more shopping malls will have to expand their parking terrain.

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