Dubai: Dubai is likely to get at least seven monorails in addition to the Dubai Light Rail project, with the development of new master-planned neighbourhoods, developers said.
The privately funded and developed monorails will primarily cater to the neighbourhoods and operate as feeder services to the Dubai Light Rail system, which will be completed in two phases by 2012.
Three of them one on The Palm Jumeirah, a second in Dubai International Financial Centre and the third in the City of Arabia at Dubailand, have been confirmed. Four others are being studied.
The other four are likely to be built in Dubai Waterfront, the Burj Dubai complex, The Palm Deira and Dubai Festival City.
"We are currently studying the possibility of a light rail system to shuttle visitors among various destinations within the Festival City," said Marwan Shehadeh, managing director of Al Futtaim Capital.
"This could be linked to the Dubai Metro so that people do not have to use cars to visit our attractions," he said.
Dubai Festival City is an upscale mixed-use development in 1,600 acres housing at least five hotels, hundreds of apartments and townhouses, a shopping arcade, schools, hospitals, office towers, a business park, large retail facilities, public places, a golf course and large landscaped areas.
Emaar Properties' Burj Dubai complex, which is expected to house 30,000 families and will be visited by at least 30 million people a year, will require a sound transport system.
Nakheel is working on a multi-mode transport mechanism for approximately one million residents at Dubai Waterfront to effectively move people and a number of traffic solutions are being studied.
"We are currently studying the traffic impact for one million residents and what sort of transportation solutions will be required to move such a huge number of residents in addition to visitors," Robert Lee, Nakheel's development director, told delegates at a conference on Tuesday.
The Palm Deira, the third palm project, will have a monorail linked to Dubai Light Rail.
The internal monorails will bring residents from various stations across the neighbourhood to Dubai Light Rail stations.
Besides, a monorail will take tourists and visitors on a journey through a pre-historic dinosaur world, one of the attractions and wonders at the City of Arabia at Dubailand.
The transport system will carry tourists in capsules, which will pass through these wonders so that visitors can get a closer look at them.
Transport experts say these developments are part of many other similar projects to come as Dubai is fast progressing with so many new projects that will require additional transport infrastructure.
