Dubai: Al Karama Metro station, one of the busiest stops on the Red Line, will now be called Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) station, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has announced.
ADCB is the latest commercial venture to acquire the naming right of a Metro station from RTA. As many as 13 prominent brands have already joined hands with RTA to get their names on stations across the Red and Green lines.
RTA signed an agreement recently with ADCB, which has its largest branch near Al Karama Metro station.
Abdullah Yousuf, CEO of RTA’s Rail Agency, and Ala’a Erekat, Chief Executive Officer of ADCB, signed the contracts representing their respective organisations.
Following the signing ceremony, Yousuf reiterated RTA’s keenness for various public and private companies in Dubai to avail of the opportunity to participate in the naming rights project which would raise the level of awareness about national and international brands, while also contributing to improving the Metro services.
“Partnering with the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, which has joined a series of companies benefiting from the Metro naming rights project and will have the naming rights of Al Karama station, is a testament to the success of the project which gained the confidence of partners. The Metro stations naming rights project is particularly appealing to owners of big brands in Dubai emirate, and contributes to attracting investment opportunities for their trade,” said Yousuf.
He added that the Dubai Metro Station naming project is the first of its kind in the Middle East and is globally being hailed as a best practice worldwide.
It is the world’s first revenue model for public transport infrastructure, which has now been emulated by other cosmopolitan cities such as Chicago, Boston, Houston, London, Delhi-Gurgaon, Philadelphia, Montreal and Rio de Janeiro.
Erekat hailed the vision of the government which resulted in the resounding success of Dubai Metro.
“The government’s clear vision has succeeded in providing a mass transit system characterised by high performance and operational efficiency just five years from the initial operation of the Dubai Metro, which has proved to be one of the successful mass transport systems in the emirate,” he said.
Other stations named after private or public firms on both the Red and Green Lines are Mall of the Emirates, Deira City Centre, Etisalat, GGICO, Sharaf DG, First Gulf Bank, Nakheel, The Palm Deira, Nakheel Harbour & Tower, Dubai Airport Free Zone, Noor Islamic Bank, BurJuman Center, and Danube.
