Dubai: The Dubai Tram marks its second anniversary on November 10 and has notched impressive performance indicators including compliance to schedules, on-time arrival, high safety standards and the highest customers’ satisfaction and happiness ratings, said the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) on Thursday.
The standout figure, officials said, is that Dubai Tram has served about nine million commuters from the start of operations back in 2014 until the end of last month.
During this period, the Tram has made about 176,000 trips and covered about 1.05 million kilometres.
The Dubai Tramway runs 11 km starting from the Marina and the JBR, passes through Dubai Media City, Knowledge Village and up to the Tram Depot near the Dubai Police Academy. The tram fleet comprises 11 trains shuttling between 11 stations based in densely populated areas.
“The Dubai Tram has achieved extremely high performance indicators with the on-time arrivals clocking 96.4 per cent, and compliance with the published schedules went as high as 98.1 per cent,” said the RTA in a statement on Thursday.
The tram is primarily aimed at improving mobility within Dubai city in general and in areas of tourist and economic importance served by the tram in particular. The Tram also supports the economy of the emirate and contributes to reducing carbon emissions, conserving the environment, and improving the living experience of residents.
Over the past two years, the RTA has undertaken a number of initiatives to improve safety levels and increase the ridership of the Tram. In coordination with the General HQ of Dubai Police, the RTA has taken additional preventive measures to enhance traffic safety at signalised junctions on the tramway at the JBR, where the movement of the tram overlaps with the movement of pedestrians and vehicles. It has removed the bus stop at the intersection and constructed a right-hand free lane at the junction. The RTA is monitoring the situation on a daily basis to fix the journey time of the tram before introducing traffic solutions. The same study will be commissioned to compare the situation before applying traffic solutions and afterwards when the traffic movement is back to normal.
The RTA said it has provided additional parking space near stations to encourage people to use the Tram.
