Demand for Dubai Metro increases

If you are a Dubai Metro regular and hit the station during peak hours, you probably know that it's not going to be an easy ride.

If you find a place to sit count yourself lucky, standing can become cumbersome as foot fall keep increasing every day.

And if you are not alert getting out at the right time can be a real challenge.

Dubai metro is doing well. When looking at the numbers, we can only conclude that its popularity is increasing day by day.

Looking at the passengers in the first quarter of 2014, this number increased with 22 per cent compared to the same period in 2013.

While a little over 40 million passengers hit the metro in the first three months of this year, almost 14 million passengers take the ride in April alone.

We asked Mohammed Al Mudharreb, Director of Rail Operations at the Road and Transport Authority (RTA) how the increasing demand will be met.

“We can say that we have many plans in place to bring in solutions in terms of service, like changing the frequencies as necessary, buying additional trains, extending the lines and enhancing the metro stations,” said al Mudharreb.

In fact, The Dubai Rail Master Plan has already been drawn with implementation priorities for the years 2020, 2025 and 2030. As part of this plan three new metro lines are in the pipeline, in addition to the extension of the Red and Green Lines.

For a more direct approach to the growing demand there are spare trains, and the headway is subject to change in order to bring more timetabled trains in service, he explained.

Meanwhile, a campaign has been launched to address metro etiquettes, a social behavior that due to the variety of backgrounds of the metro passenger may not be easy to streamline.

On its Twitter page the RTA has sent out several etiquette tips over the past weeks. “Don’t push in the metro,” or “Please allow passengers to get off the train before you get on,” were among the advices.

“This year has witnessed a remarkable growth in the number of metro riders compared to the previous year; which has always been the core of our plans tailored to delivering a whole host of initiatives and  service improvements capable of enticing all community members to use the metro as a primary transit means characterized by security, luxury and safety,” said Abdullah Yousef Al Ali, Acting CEO of RTA Rail Agency.

When asked whether the metro hours on Fridays would be changed, Al Mudharreb answered: “Dubai metro needs some maintenance hours to do the heavy maintenance plus we do some operation/safety or readiness drills on Friday morning, so for the time being we are studying the options of when we can change the timetable on Friday and what the changes are.”

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