Al Ain Staggered opening times for schools across the district have brought relief to parents who have found less traffic to contend with.
The new timing system, a pilot project introduced by Al Ain Municipality is being viewed as a temporary measure with people awaiting more concrete plans to solve the long-term traffic and safety problems in the area.
The oasis city has thousands of pupils going to more than 150 private and public schools every day. The Shaikh Khalid Bin Sultan Street area has around 95 per cent of the city's private schools. Most public schools located in different parts of the city.
Some schools opened on Sunday and parents were happy to see deserted streets when they dropped their children off in the morning. The situation, however, changed significantly on Monday when some of the most popular schools opened.
"The roads are still crowded but with just a nominal improvement," said Jacob Pereira, an Indian father-of-two. He said the staggered timing system showed good intentions but much more needed to be done.
Reem Mansour, a Lebanese expatriate, said parents, students, and school administrations had suffered a lot over the past few years and that any solution must be swift and affective. She said: "The system seems to be working since I am not stuck in a traffic jam today.
"It is simply a planning blunder," she said, and blamed the town planners for putting all of the city's private schools in one location without giving proper consideration to traffic and safety issues. "Driving in the peak school hours in the area is a horrifying experience and I have long been enduring it twice a day," she said.
The area has become a nightmare for drivers with frequent accidents, chaotic traffic jams, streets thronged with buses, mini-vans, private cars and taxis in the mornings and afternoons.
Joint development
The new timing system has jointly been developed by Al Ain Municipality, the Department of Transport, and Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec).
Under the new system, eight schools yesterday started at 7.30am, nine at 8am and two at 8.15am. They also finished classes at 1pm, 1.30pm and 1.45pm. Al Ain Municipality has a plan to collect a weekly report about the system from traffic police and school administrations.
Haji Abdullah Khan, a Pakistani father-of-three, said the introduction of the staggered timing system showed the civic administration were feeling the heat over the concentration of private schools in just one area — with more than 30,000 pupils. "I think it has been a struggle for several years to find a solution to ease the ensuing traffic jams," he added.
For years the civic administration has actively sought a solution to the problem. In January 2010, Al Ain Municipality announced a plan to alleviate the traffic problem by redesigning roads and replacing roundabouts with traffic lights. It awarded a Dh100 million contract to a consultancy firm to study and help improve the roads and traffic flow.
