Express with a small 'e' for Dubai Metro

Express with a small ‘e’ for Dubai Metro

The RTA has decided to launch an express train service for customers to reduce their commute time

July 30, 2012 10:30 by Muhammad Aldalou

For public commuters and nine-to-fivers that rely on the public transportation in Dubai on a daily basis; a bit of good news has arrived, but only if you are prepared to commute at the crack of dawn.

The Roads and Transport Authority has finally responded to excessive demand in claims and is preparing for a trial run of an express service of the Metro train. If the definition of express has its limitations, it is not clear but if you generally use the Dubai Metro for short commutes this may not prove beneficial to your daily trip but in the long run of far commutes there will be over several minutes cut from the overall journey.

The total journey from Rashidya to Jebel Ali (which is one end of the track to the other) will be cut by 10 minutes. The RTA plans to accomplish this reduction by transforming the programming into a slightly faster track where it will skip some of the stations and stop at the more popular ones.

At the initiation of this trial run, the authority will only allocate four express trains each morning; they will save a little time for commuters by skipping 14 of the 29 Red Line stations and run at an average speed of 43 kph.

“I really don’t see any point in reducing such a long journey by only 10 minutes, as i am sure that the RTA will increase the price and if they do that i don’t think people would be willing to pay the extra,” James Warta, a regular commuter in Dubai told this reporter.

Although in all fairness; it is a trial run but the express trains will be running extremely early, probably much too early for most commuters to take advantage of. If a trial run is done to adequately prove popularity, running it at 5:30 and 5:30 in the morning may not be the best statistic to base it on.

Each train will stop only at the most frequently used stations – Rashidiya, Emirates, Al Rigga, Union, Khalid Bin Al Waleed, Karama, Al Jafiliya, Emirates Towers, Noor Islamic Bank, First Gulf bank, Dubai Internet City, Ibn Battuta and Jebel Ali.

The CEO of the RTA says that the infrastructure allows for expansion and if the trial turns out to be popular then more trains will be added.

“Express Trains are to commence operations before the start of the metro’s regular service as an added service to the current trips which start at 5.30am… This service option is set to reduce the trip time by 10 minutes,” he added.

The trial runs will begin in October.