Dubai: When the Dubai Metro was inaugurated six years ago, the other first to its credit was a young Emirati woman driver, Mariam Al Saffar, 30, who has now been moved to the Dubai Tram project as the operation supervisor since December 2013 and expects to be promoted to operations manager once the Tram project open in November.
Although the Metro runs without a driver operating it, it has a fleet of 130 Metro drivers who are aboard the train to manouevre it in case of a breakdown and take it to the workshop for repairs. Mariam is extremely proud of her achievement and that of Dubai, which boasts of not just the world’s sleekest smartest Metro, but trams as well now.
Six years ago, just 24 years old, Mariam made the transition from banking to running a train solely on a whim. “I could never believe that we would be able to see trains in Dubai. As a child, I was fascinated with toy trains. I just wanted to be part of this exciting new project,” says this graduate in business management from the Dubai Women’s College who later joined a bank.
Talking of that love, she says, “It was a tough decision to move from a bank to running trains.”
Mariam first joined Serco, that runs Dubai Metro, in its Human Resources division, moved to marketing and, finally, to the train operating division. “I came from a humanities background and I had to study basic engineering for a whole year,” she recalls.
It was challenging for her, at her young age, to understand what was inside a machine, understand traction power and how pneumatic doors are operated. She had to pass a battery of technical tests to qualify and says it was very difficult for her to understand engineering concepts, but she did not give up and, soon enough, she was manning the Metro on the day it was inaugurated.
“It was an exhilarating feeling,” recalls Mariam who logged 10.5 hours of duty with a one-hour break. “Very often, my duty time was 3am until 12 noon and I had to step out of home around 1.30am to report to work. My family was not happy with these hours as there was no previous tradition of a woman leaving for duty at this hour. It was tough, but I managed it because I was so passionate about my job,” she says.
On duty, she faced some challenges which her training equipped her to overcome. “Once on duty, I had a train door which would not close. I had to immediately report the problem to the Operations Control Centre (OCC), unhinge the door from the top panel within seconds, repair the mechanical fault and put it back in place. It took me approximately four seconds to do all of this and I was able to successfully take the train to the maintenance workshop,” she recounts.
Mariam feels the new projects in the UAE have brought great opportunities for UAE women and they must be prepared to work hard to achieve success and satisfaction. “I went to tell all Emirati women to explore the full potential of their brain. Don’t stop at a lesser thing. If you have a dream, work hard to realise it.
“Nothing is impossible,” she says.
