Dubai: Wondering which bus to take when commuting in Dubai? Just dial the toll-free line 800-9090 and someone will immediately guide you.

These calls, along with many others, are handled and monitored by the Roads and Transport Authority’s (RTA) Call Centre which received more than 1.1 million calls — more than 6,500 calls a day — at a response rate of 11 seconds per call.

RTA’s Call Centre managed to reduce the response rate to 11 seconds from the planned response period of 20 seconds per call. The calls received also increased by nine per cent from 1,084,635 calls during the same period last year.

Ahmad Mahboub, Executive Director of Customers Service, RTA Corporate Administrative Support Services Sector, said receiving more than one million calls during the first half of 2017 reflects the growing number of people opting to communicate with the award-winning centre.

The RTA Call Centre won the Best Customers Call Centre in the last edition of the Hamdan Bin Mohammad Programme for Smart Government Award.

“This growth in the number of calls received is attributed to the huge efforts and excellent performance of working teams to ensure a quick response to the needs of customers needs in a record time despite the numerous services on offer. In line with our Government directives to rank Dubai the smartest city in the world, and in response to the Smart City initiative of Dubai Government, the call centre is focused on offering multiple e-services using hi-tech systems,” Mahboub said.

During the first half of this year, the centre processed 25,715 transactions through the IVR System and received 317,272 inquiries during the same period.

The centre also processed 65,613 transactions via emails; recording a 21 per cent rise over the figure of the same period last year. It finalised 18,994 transactions relating to driver licences, vehicles and payment of fines. Transactions and inquiries channelled through chats amounted 80,057 transactions; which reflects a whopping increase of as much as 1,700 per cent over the same period last year, thanks to the 24/7 communication along with the increase in the number of services.

Madinati observations clocked 12,619 cases during the first half of this year recording a sign-off rate of cases amounted to 99.7 per cent.