The date 09 09 09 was perhaps one of the biggest days in UAE history. As HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Prime Minister and Vice President, and Ruler of Dubai, pushed the button at nine minutes past 9pm, he officially opened the Dubai Metro, the Arabian Peninsula’s first urban train network.
Just nine hours later the metro opened to the public for the first time.
Few cities could have achieved what Dubai has done in just four years. In just 48 months the city opened the first 10 of 29 metro stations on the red line. The rest are slated for completion by May 2010.
Putting rest to rumours that Dubai wasn’t ready for a public transport system, the RTA announced official figures for the metro’s first two days in operation with more than 110,000 people – ten percent of the population – travelling in the first 48 hours. Within a week that figure had climbed to 366,968 and by September, passengers had surpassed the one million mark.
In addition to ensuring the smooth running of the city’s public transport system, His Excellency Mattar Al Tayer, has also promised that half of all of the metro’s staff will be Emiratis by 2013.
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