Dubai mass transit systems grows to meet development

The urban infrastructure of the Dubai emirate has expanded dramatically over the years, accommodating the rapid growth in population as well as traffic, according to a report published by Gulf News yesterday.
Despite the financial downturn in 2008, Dubai's population has grown by 44 per cent from around 1.53 million in 2007 to about 2.21 million by the end of 2013.
Most of the growth of the city during this time has been driven by the opening of major developments such as the Dubai Metro, Burj Khalifa, Dubai Mall, Dubai Festival City, Business Bay, Sports City, Dubai Marine and Jumeirah Village.
According to Nasser Abu Shehab, Director of Strategic Transportation Planning at the Road and Transport Authority (RTA), the Dubai Metro has been the most challenging project undertaken by RTA till date, and the project has been worth the pain as it has transformed the way Dubai moves.
"Integration of public transport is one the key areas that RTA constantly works towards. With integration comes sustainability, increase in the use of public transport, improvement in health and many other factors," said Abu Shehab.
He added that there has been a huge increase in the use of the mass transit systems of Dubai following the launch of the Metro, with the integrated network transporting 440,672 million people in 2013.
Comparatively, the public transport ridership was 367.6 million and 346.5 million in 2012 and 2011 respectively, and the average daily usage of public transport also jumped to 1.3 million last year compared with one million in 2012 and 963,000 in 2011.
Over the next six years, RTA's major focus is to cater to the requirement of Expo 2020 and the plans include a number of road projects which directly serve the Expo 2020. In addition RTA will provide parking areas and internal roads/walkways needed to serve the site.
Among the major infrastructure developments will be developing and operating transportation intelligent traffic systems and other systems needed to efficiently manage road and public transportation systems serving the Expo site.
"RTA has already initiated the work on the ECCC (Enterprise Command Control Centre) project which aims to develop an integrated transportation control centre and central transportation media and risk management centres. In addition, RTA will provide systems needed to manage parting and taxi areas at the Expo 2020 site," Abu Shehab said.
Besides developing roads and IT systems, major focus of RTA's development programmes is an integrated public transport system to serve the Expo 202 site.
One of the landmark projects that will be ready before Expo 202 will be Dh2 billion Dubai Canal. The project will see the extension of Deira Creek from Business Bay to Jumeira, converting Bur Dubai into an island ringed by Dubai Creek.
The 3km canal will span more than 8,000 square metres of development and have more than 450 restaurants, several bridges and four new hotels. The development is planned to be completed in 2016.
RTA is also developing pedestrian only areas as well as foot bridges. RTA has also developed a Bicycle Master Plan to develop 850 km of strategic bikeway by 2030.