Dubai: Commuters going back home from New Year celebrations will have unhindered access to Dubai Metro as Nol gates at four stations near Downtown Dubai will be left open after midnight.

In an attempt to ease the bottleneck at Metro stations following the New Year celebrations, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) will allow commuters to pass through Nol gates at Business Bay, Dubai Mall, Financial Centre and Emirates Towers stations without punching their Nol cards. However, the trips won’t be free and fares will be deducted when the commuters get off the Metro at their final destination.

The gates will work as usual before midnight and residents will have to punch in and out at all Metro stations en route to New Year celebrations.

“We have developed a mechanism which reads the cards when the passengers pass through the gates at these stations, where they won’t have to punch their Nol cards after midnight,” said Ahmad Al Hammadi, who is heading the special committee overseeing RTA’s transport arrangements for New Year.

The move comes in the wake of the inconvenience faced last New Year’s when the hordes of commuters had to punch their cards at the Nol gates.

“We don’t want people to suffer and we are making every possible arrangement to make life easy for commuters. I request people to use the public properties in a responsible way and avoid rushing to one particular station. We have dedicated four stations for revellers at the Downtown New Year celebrations. Commuters going back home from celebrations can use any of the four stations,” he added.

He said that trains will run every two minutes 30 seconds from midnight to 8am on the morning of January 1, against the usual eight minute frequency, while both the Red and Green Lines will remain open for 24 hours.

RTA is working closely with other authorities and has chalked out a four-pronged plan for transport.

Apart from special arrangements on the Metro, special bus services have been arranged to and from the Dubai Mall area.

Eight bus routes have been linked to Downtown Dubai from different areas and adjacent Metro stations. Buses will run every five minutes from Burj Khalifa station to Dubai Mall, which is also connected by a walkway now.

Buses to and from Business Bay, Emirates Towers and Financial Centre stations connecting with Downtown will run every 10 minutes.

Two more bus routes will shuttle revellers from DWTC and Meydan to Dubai Mall and back. Special parking arrangements have been made at both the locations.

Al Hammadi said that special kiosks have been set up to sell Nol cards at various locations in Downtown, inside Dubai Mall, at DWTC and Meydan parking, etc.

He added that special taxi stations have been set up at five different locations — DWTC, Al Jaffiliya, BurJuman, Ibn Battuta and Al Ghubaiba.

RTA has made arrangements to transport around 1.2 million people for the New Year celebrations, with 460,000 people expected to use the Metro, 300,000 to ride buses and a further 500,000 passengers using taxis and marine transport.

Special marine transport arrangements have also been made for New Year with ferries running from Al Ghubaiba and Atlantis between 11pm and 1am, while water taxis will be available to be chartered at all 29 stations. Water buses and abras will also run on the Creek during the New Year celebrations.