Dubai's public transport carried 288 million people in 2009

Dubai’s public transport carried 288 million people in 2009

The RTA expects the number to increase in 2010 because of the opening of more Metro stations this year.

March 6, 2010 8:41 by kippreport

More than 842,000 people used public transport everyday in Dubai in 2009, according to figures released by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) on Saturday. The Dubai Metro, public buses, marine transport modes and taxis had lifted more than 288.777 million people last year, the RTA said. “This number is likely to grow with the successive opening of more metro stations on the Red Line starting from April 2010 and continuing over the remaining months of the year,” Mattar al-Tayer, chairman and executive director of the RTA, said in a statement adding that the Metro is expected to commute about 35 million passengers in 2010.

He said the RTA was also striving to meet its objective of “raising the share of mass transportation systems from 6 percent in 2009 to 30 percent by 2020.”

“Using mass transportation has multifarious benefits to users such as bringing psychological relief, minimizing crashes, slashing fuel and maintenance expenditure for private vehicles, and ridding the public of the inconvenience of finding a parking slot,” he said adding that it also minimized pollution.

“The huge investments pumped by the Government of Dubai in developing the infrastructure of transport sector have proved successful and effective,” al-Tayer added.