Seven new Dubai metro stations open on Friday

The Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) is all set to open on Friday, seven new metro stations; namely: Emirates, Airport Terminal 1, Al Karama, Emirates Towers, Dubai Internet City, Dubai Marina, and Ibn Battuta stations.

The new stations will receive passengers as of 02 pm tomorrow up to midnight, and reopen for passenger service from Saturday to Thursday from 06 am up to 11 pm, the RTA said in a press statement on Thursday.

Mattar Al Tayer, chairman of the Board and executive director of the RTA stressed that the new stations were ready to receive passengers. 20 trains will be operated during peak time and 15 trains during off-peak time and the service will be run on a 6 minutes heady (frequency) during peak time and 8 minutes headway during off-peak time.

“The Contractor has put the final touches to the new stations, including the finishing works on the floors, fitting and commissioning of escalators and lifts, internal lighting and fittings required for special needs passengers such as tactile floor guiding optically impaired commuters to their intended destinations in addition to the audio-visual PA systems. Due attention has also been given to the finishing works of walls and aesthetic elements of all stations,” he said.

“Public Transport Agency has completed the training of bus drivers on the new Feeder Bus service for the metro stations to be opened. 28 feeder buses have been deployed to link the metro stations with the neighbourhood and the service will be run at 13-20 minutes headway” Al Tayer added.

Since its inception on September 09 last year till the end of last March, Dubai Metro has lifted about 13.68 million passengers and the number of daily ridership is about 80 thousand passengers.

The number is geared to rise in excess of hundred thousand passengers with the opening of the new metro stations.

The number of the metro users is estimated to hit 35 million passengers in 2010 and is likely to receive a further boost in August 2011 with the operation of the Green Line; which serves vital areas with intense commercial and public activities as well as high population density, the RTA said. As of Friday, RTA Unified Automated Fare Collection Department will offer Nol Blue Cards instead of Nol Silver Cards at the same cost and for a limited period; as the RTA had already sold about 2 million Nol Silver Cards since last August.