Dubai looks at Venice to transform abra service

The water transport system in Venice might help transform Dubai's own abra service, a municipality official said yesterday.

"We could be aware of the technologies they use in passenger vessels. It is always not necessary that the abras are used to cross the creek, they can also be used to run parallel to the creek in order to reduce the heavy traffic on the roads," said Abdul Aziz Malik, director of Public Transport Department, at the international workshop on the future of water transport.

Malik added the department would study the demand for such transport.

"We also came to know about the methods in other countries to integrate the water transport and other public transport systems. We can think of this seriously as we have 18 million passengers using the abras. The abra stations could also be transformed to a shopping mall to attract the tourists like in Venice," he added.