Al Tayer Discusses Coop, Exchange Of Expertise With German Official

His Excellency Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board & Executive Director of the Roads & Transport Authority (RTA), has recently received H.E. Rainer Bomba, State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building & Urban Development, and H.E. Gunther Adler, Head of External Economic Affairs. Also present were representatives of top German firms engaged in building, operating and maintaining of mass transit means & traffic control systems as well as a host of CEOs & Directors of the RTA.

At the outset of the meeting, Al Tayer welcomed the German Minister and praised the cooperative relationships linking the RTA with German firms operating in roads & transportation field.

"We’ve extensive partnership relationships with several German businesses particularly in the Dubai Metro project, public buses and electronic systems," remarked Al Tayer.

He then gave the German delegation an overview of the Dubai Metro project which started in July 2006 and extends 75 km in both the Red and Green Lines. The elevated track runs 58.7 km, the underground track extends 12.6 km and the surface track extends 3.3 km on the Red Line only.

"The total transit time on the Red Line is about 65 minutes whereas the total transit time on the Green Line is about 35 minutes. Among the key design features of the Dubai Metro project is that it has a fully automated operational system, central air-conditioning system in all stations & attached footbridges, and auto doors to seclude passenger platforms from the rail track. The project also has three maintenance & storage depots at Al Rashidiya, Al Qusais and Jebel Ali. Each train has a capacity to take 643 passengers and comprises two types of metro carriages; a Gold Class and Silver Class in addition to an exclusive compartment for women and children.

"There are 79 trains to run the service but currently 50 trains are deployed for the daily operations offering service at 4-6 minutes frequency (headway) during peak hours, and 6-8 minutes frequency during off-peak hours. The design capacity of the metro is about 26 thousand persons per hour per direction and a headway of 90 seconds; however, the currently used capacity is in the order of 37%; which illustrates the potentials of the Dubai Metro to handle the projected passengers’ growth in decades to come," elaborated Al Tayer.

The German delegation commended the speedy delivery of infrastructure projects such as roads, Dubai Metro, revamp of public buses fleet and the integration between mass transit means. He cited the Dubai Metro project featuring terrific design, high level finishing works, and excellent passengers’ service experience.

The German State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building & Urban Development expressed his aspirations for establishing cooperative and partnership relationships between the two parties that pave the way for sharing expertise and benefiting from individual practices in public transport and rail systems. He added that he would be looking forward for the German firms to take part in the projects & programs to be adopted by the RTA in future.

 

Emirate:  Dubai

Date: Feb 8, 2012

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