Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has released the statistics revealing the exact number of riders used public transport in the first six months of this year.
As per the figures released, an average of 1.6 million riders took public transport on a daily basis, accumulating to 296.22 million riders by the between January and June this year.
Of all public transportation modes, Dubai Metro is the most among commuters with 34% of total riders, followed by 30% taking taxis and 27% public buses.
“Dubai Metro Red and Green Lines have lifted 101.68m riders during the first half of this year (66.14m riders for the Red Line and 35.54m riders for the Green Line),” says HE Mattar Al Tayer, Director-General and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).
The busiest bus stations of the year were BurJuman Station (6.348 million riders), Union Station Al Rigga Station (5.359 million riders), Dubai Multi Commodities Centre Station (4.573 million riders) , Burj Khalifa-Dubai Mall Station (3.904 million riders), Mall of the Emirates Station (3.725 million riders), Al Fahidi Station (3.910 million) riders, Baniyas Station (3.249 million riders), and Stadium Station (2.904 million riders),”
“Public Transport numbers reflect a healthy 6.5% growth rate from the figure recorded in the same period last year,” adds HE Mattar Al Tayer.
“People started to grasp the benefits of using public transport such as the peace of mind, physical relief, higher safety and lower expenses on cars. The figures achieved confirm this concept as the ratio of trips using public and shared transport has almost tripled from 6% in 2006 to 17.5% in 2018 with a compound annual growth of about 9.3% p.a.,” explains HE Mattar Al Tayer.
In RTA’s recent moves to boost public transport use, it has integrated the Careem App to book RTA taxis online and has launched a new ferry link between Dubai and Sharjah.