Driverless cars, air taxis and unibikes: The future of UAE transport

Driverless cars, air taxis and unibikes. This is what the future of UAE's transport looks like.

Mattar Mohammad Al Tayer, Director General and Chairman of the Board of Executive Director of Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), spoke at the World Government Summit today (Monday), laying out the achievements of the RTA so far and what the country's plans are, especially for the Expo 2020.

He spoke about the Government of Dubai's vision and how in other parts of the world private sector channelised change.

However, in the UAE, the government drives change.

Driving change

"Yesterday, many speakers [at the World Government Summit] talked about how trillions of dollars are spent on research and development. However, with the UAE, the situation is different. Here, the government is the driving factor of change," he said.

"In order to be a leader of change, you have to have a clear vision, foresight and capability to manage changes," he added.

Al Tayer, however, specified that this did not meant that the private sector is not part of the innovation drives.

He also spoke about how car ownership put a strain on infrastructure and the environment.

1 million cars from Sharjah

"In Dubai, there are 3.5million people. We have more than one million cars coming in from Sharjah, which means that many people are accessing Dubai on a daily basis. The overall population can be estimated to be as high as five million. To service so many people you have to have infrastructure," he said.

He mentioned RTA initiatives — like ekar and Udrive  which offer residents the chance to use the car and leave it at their destination, this helps reduce the number of vehicles on the road.

He added that plans were being considered to reduce the cars on the road further, with the aim of 25 per cent of commutes through the Metro.

"We could start a Metro to link together all the cities. We need to determine the start and finish point."

He also said the future of transport in the UAE will see changes in the nature of commuting with an increase in buses on demand ( from two in 2018 to 12 in 2030) and car sharing (from400 cars in 2018 to 1,400 in 2030). Dubai, which had issued a first of its kind guidebook on automated vehicles in 2018, had also entered into key partnerships with private players, including universities and the likes of Careem, to introduce several innovative measures, he added.

He said, “Dubai will host the Dubai World Congress, a first of its kind meet for self-driving transport in October 2019, in addition to the Dubai World Challenge.”

Al Tayer also touched upon RTA’s initiatives like E/N Ride, hybrid taxis, electric buses and electric taxis.

“Our initiatives have reduced fuel consumption by 285 million litres per year and carbondioxide emissions by 5,000 tons annually,” he added.

Vision

He added that His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, had laid out clear principles that defined the roadmap for the future.

"In 2019, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad published three documents in the book Qissati and they discussed mobility and the future," he said.

Emirate:  Dubai

Date: Feb 11, 2019

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