LONDON: The Dubai Metro has surpassed 2 billion journeys since it opened on Sept. 9, 2009, the emirate’s Roads and Transport Authority announced on Monday.
The metro’s Red Line has notched up 1.3 billion riders while the Green Line has served 670 million commuters since its inauguration.
The RTA also said the Dubai Metro had maintained a punctuality rate of 99.7 percent in that time, and its average daily ridership surpassed 616,000 riders in 2022, according to an Emirates News Agency report.
“Statistics reveal a consistent rise in Dubai Metro ridership since the start of the service in September 2009,” Mattar Al-Tayer, director general and chairman of RTA, said.
“The total number of Dubai Metro users since its inauguration through to January of 2023 exceeded two billion,” he added.
The metro has contributed to boosting Dubai’s competitiveness in hosting global events such as Expo 2020, which featured the construction of Route 2020 which spans 15 kilometres and connects seven stations, WAM said.
It had also played a role in stimulating Dubai’s economic growth, boosting tourism, as well as contributing to a 12 percent appreciation in the value of real estate properties nearby the metro stations, WAM added.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, UAE vice-president and prime minister and ruler of Dubai, tweeted on Sunday how the idea of a metro in the region was a novel one in 2009, but that he recalled how Dubai went ahead with the “bold decision” of launching one, and “delivered what we promised.”
In 2019, on the tenth anniversary of the Metro’s opening, Sheikh Mohammed tweeted: “Dubai Metro was once a dream, I was 10 years old when I visited London in 1959 with my father … insisted to see a train’s cockpit. Fifty years later, Dubai Metro came true in 2009, nothing is impossible if you can dream it.”
