Dubai: Residents will soon be able to make retail purchases using their NoL card, a senior Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) official told XPRESS.
“We already have the system capability and now we are waiting for stores to be ready. By next year most likely we will be able to introduce it,” said Abdul Mohsin Younes, the RTA’s CEO of Strategic and Corporate Governance.
Talking about the proposed pedestrian and cycling tracks, he said the first phase that entails designing about 50km of tracks has already started. The emirate will have over 800km of pedestrian and cycling tracks by 2020. In the first phase, the tracks will come up in several areas including Jumeirah.
Various strategies of the RTA to provide smooth and safe transport have helped bring down the cost of time and fuel wasted in congestion to Dh2.2 billion compared to Dh4.8 billion in 2005. Delays have fallen from 15 minutes to five minutes per trip.
By 2020 the Metro network will cover more than 3,000km with the number of daily passengers expected to hit two million. Around 300,000 residents use the Metro every day and 380,000 use buses and marine transport.
Dubai will also increase the number of buses to 2,000 in the next eight years. The other developments included in the plan are nine new ring roads, 95 new interchanges and increasing the number of lanes across the creek to 100.
