UAE | Traffic and Transport
Save Dh21,000 every year
Dubai loses Dh4.5 billion due to traffic congestion on the road, according to the Dubai Road and Transport Authority's (RTA) studies.
- By Ashfaq Ahmed, Chief Reporter
- Published: 23:04 July 4, 2009
Dubai loses Dh4.5 billion due to traffic congestion on the road, according to the Dubai Road and Transport Authority's (RTA) studies.
There are more than one million registered vehicles in Dubai while more than 1.3 million vehicles use the emirate's road network every day.
Currently, an average of 541 people out of every 1,000 people own a car in the emirate. The number of registered vehicles in Dubai has already seen growth of about 17 per cent per year during the past five years – highest in the world.
Economic loss
The number of vehicles have increased from 739,547 in 2006 to 853,827 in 2007, while this figure touched around 1,014,500 vehicles by the end of 2008.
"Traffic congestion in our city costs money in lost time and the overuse of cars costs some of us our health," Mohammad Al Hashemi, Director of Planning and Business Development Department at the RTA's Public Transport Agency, said.
Average cost of owning a new car is about Dh25,000 per year whereas maximum cost of a monthly public transport pass for travel on the Metro, public transport and water transport will be Dh270, with effect from September 9 this year. It comes to Dh3,240 per year.
The emirate is expected to have 5.3 million registered vehicles by 2020 if the current annual rate of a 17 per cent increase in the number of vehicles continues, threatening massive traffic congestion and economic losses running into billions of dirhams, an RTA study reveals.
Human loss
The increasing traffic has also cost many human lives. 332 people were killed on Dubai roads in 2007, while the number reduced to 294 in 2008 due to new stricter traffic laws.
"The use of public transport can not only save many precious lives but also save time and money," Al Hashemi said.
The emirate is expected to have 5.25 million people living here by 2020 with a projected growth of 10 per cent per annum in the population. Dubai's population in 2005 was 1.3 million and it already crossed the 1.45 million mark in 2007. Going by these statistics, the number of cars in Dubai would exceed the number of people living in the emirate, if people do not switch to public transport.
In order to offset this impact, the RTA has focused mainly on the public transport sector. The Dubai Metro is expected to capture 17 per cent share of the mass transport commuter traffic.
The RTA, currently, has around 800 public transport buses running on 80 routes. The fleet will be increased to 1,300 by the end of this year and the total will be 2,100 buses by the end of 2010.
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