Public Bus occupancy in Dubai has risen remarkably in the first four months of 2014 to as much as 42.6%, compared with 39.3% posted in the same period last year, recording in the process an improvement rate of 8.5%, thanks to the rising demand for this transit service by various segments of the community.
Dr. Yousef Mohammed Al Ali, CEO of the Public Transport Agency, Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), said: "Among the key factors triggering the rise in the bus seat occupancy in the Emirate of Dubai is the obvious improvement in the accuracy of bus schedules as on-time arrivals encourage additional numbers of the public to use public buses in travelling to various destinations across the Emirate." "Reviewing the best international practices adopted in this regard, and benchmarking with a host of cities in several of advanced countries such as Germany, France, Finland, Sweden, Britain and the USA, Dubai ranked third worldwide, after Germany and France, in the Public Bus Seat Occupancy rate.
This news undoubtedly constitutes a massive achievement for the Emirate, considering the record time in which it was made compared with a long history of cities in Europe, US, and Japan in the field of public transport," he noted.
"We've adopted several steps to increase seat occupancy of public buses in Dubai including the continuous monitoring of the performance of public bus routes to identify the low occupancy routes, developing appropriate corrective measures for each route to be implemented in the final quarter of 2014, studying new demand areas, and analysing the possibility of increasing bus seats on high demand routes to keep pace with the volume of demand. Moreover, we measure public bus route operation in terms of seat occupancy; which contributes to the optimal distribution of network assets in physical and financial terms as the percentage of bus occupancy is measured by dividing the number of passenger-kilometre by the operational capacity-kilometre," continued Al Ali.
"The RTA is constantly seeking to harness modern technology for the service of mass transit mode users in order to up the quality of passenger services. In this regard the RTA developed the Journey Planner (Wojhati); which is accessible through RTA's website (www.rta.ae) or 10 touch screens installed in main stations, enabling riders to plan their daily travels aboard various mass transit means including public buses," added the CEO of RTA Public Transport Agency.
Currently there are 107 bus routes in Dubai comprising Local Routes, Metro Stations Feeder Routes, CBD Routes, Express Routes, and Intercity Routes. The C01 Route, which starts from Dubai International Airport (Terminal3) and reaches the Al Satwa Bus Station, stands out as the busiest public bus route in terms of the number of riders lifted, as this route lifted about 580 thousand riders in July this year.