Dubai: Adopting smart systems has increased efficiency and generated savings in the public transport and taxi sector at the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), an official said.

“It contributed to increasing the efficiency and generating savings in excess of Dh200 million, and increased bus compliance with timetables,” Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director of the RTA, said.

According to RTA statistics, in 2014, bus compliance with on-time exiting of depots was as high as 99 per cent, Dubai taxis covered about two billion kilometres, and the average time of dispatching a taxi to customers was 13 minutes and 43 seconds.

“The Automated Vehicle Movement (AVM), designed at the highest global practices to provide bus monitoring and tracking in an area of about 83 million square metres, contributed to enhancing the communication between the Control Centre and bus drivers, monitoring the movement of 1,568 buses over 252 routes, increased the control of revenues, and reduced expenditure by more than Dh200 million,” Al Tayer said. “It has also raised customers’ satisfaction rating from 68 per cent in 2009 to 85 per cent in 2014, and reduced customers’ complaints from 500 complaints in 2009 to eight complaints in 2014.”

The system is linked to seven smart technologies and apps such as the fare system (NOL), screens displaying real-time information about bus movement, journey planner (Wojhati) app, scheduling system, and the cost accounting system, among others.

“In 2014, the number of public bus riders topped 135.5 million (compared with 115.67 million riders in 2014), and the daily ridership of buses clocked 371,000 riders (compared with 321,000 riders in 2013),” Al Tayer said.

Taxis

According to Al Tayer, Dubai Taxis covered a distance which is analogous to circling the equator 48,000 times.

“Last year, taxis in Dubai (Dubai Taxi and franchise companies) made 108.87 million trips, serving more than 217,751 riders, covering 1,94 billion kilometres; which is equivalent to circling the equator 48,000 times,” he said.

“The number of calls picked up by the Booking and Dispatch Section amounted to 8.238 million calls of which 5.938 million were responded to by staff of the Booking and Dispatch Centre, and 2.299 million calls were responded to by the Interactive Voice Response system (IVR); which is equivalent to 42 per cent of the total number of calls received by the centre. The number of bookings completed through the Smart Taxi app amounted to 52,000 bookings,” stated Al Tayer.

Operation Control Centre

The Bus Operation Control Centre is fitted with 24 giant screens and the full centre has a capacity to deploy 22 staff per shift, and currently 14 operators are on duty per shift. The centre has 27 employees and the Emiratisation rate is 26 per cent.

The centre works out timetables, conducts electronic monitoring of bus movement, and verifies compliance with schedules, routes and timetables. It measures the daily bus movement, ensures the on-time bus departures and arrivals at stations, and acts appropriately to control the performance and enhance compliance with timetables. It also monitors the interfacing with RTA’s control centres and verifies the accuracy of the real-time passenger information system at Metro stations through 620 screens dotting Metro stations, bus stations, bus stops, airports and malls.