Dubai’s roads and transport authority (RTA) has no plans to reduce the number of taxis operating in the city, despite a surge in the amount of people using the metro, a senior RTA official has said.
The emirate’s first eco-friendly light rail system carried 69m passengers in 2011, up from just 30m in its first year, but there remains the same number of taxis on the roads since the launch of metro, the RTA said.
“The total number of taxis [on the roads] is 7942. We are not planning to reduce the number of taxis, because we need to have all modes of transport in place,” said Essa Al Dossari, the CEO of public transport at the RTA.
“We are serving a number of different categories [of people], including business people and tourists. There needs to be a variety [of options].”
Figures released earlier this month showed that total revenues at the Dubai Taxi Corporation exceeded AED1bn in 2011, representing a 22 percent rise on the previous year.
Total profits earned by the DTC also jumped from AED114.695m in 2010 to AED146m last year, the equivalent of a 28 percent hike after the deduction of franchise fees paid to the Public Transport Agency.
Mattar Al Tayer, chairman and executive director of the RTA, said the company planned to “work continuously” to upgrade the quality of its taxi services.
He added earlier that the RTA’s strategic objective was to minimise the use of private vehicles and maximise the use of public transit means, including taxis, from 13 percent in 2006 to 30 percent in 2030.
A total of 346.5 million passengers used public transport in Dubai last year, rising 4.3 percent since 2010.
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