FEED YOUR METROS:

Global event organizers Terrapinn can take credit for an energetic Dubai rail conference last month. Mideast Rail 2015 took place in the largest of the United Arab Emirates -- the high-growth zone on the southern shore of the Persian Gulf. Hundreds of participants and scores of active booths by exhibitors from all over the world were abuzz with local Emiratis and influential transport professionals with credible budgets in variegated accents of Arabic. The Program was in English and Arabic, with aisle talk also in Punjabi, Farsi and other tongues.

Figure 1   Access to Dubai’s metro stations could be neatly enhanced with small scale systems such as podcars.

The growing regional metro market totals up to billions, maybe trillions of dollars -- or dirhams, dinars or riyals. Most will be driverless - in Madinah, Riyadh, Dohai etc. The reality of Dubai’s stunningly successful driverless metro, first segment opened in 2009, inspires to that degree. Dubai’s driverless metro is quite superb -- well-used and user-friendly. It has served growing volumes of passengers over the last six years without major incident. 

This is a major credit to Dubai’s leaders and to the very international team that pulled it off -- Wilbur Smith, Systra, MHI, Thales, Serco, …… and many more. The metro has been fast-tracked over 20km out to Jebel Ali. Many brag that it is the world’s largest driverless network with a long stretches parallel to a flat, straight highway. In this corridor that heads to Abu Dhabi, lots of modern desert urban development is in place, and more underway. . 

Dubai’s metro lacks modern, small-scale circulators. Seven pairs of slick moving walks awkwardly connect the Mall of Dubai. A manual streetcar links another station to the slow, bumpy (automated) Hitachi monorail that runs out the trunk of Palm Jumeirah. But no neat circulators or podcar networking extend the reach of stations. Sadly, there wasn't any talk of such intermodalities at MER-2015.

Figure 2   Long walks to the Mall of Dubai.

High-speed rail was on the agenda. Multiple plans, visions and protocols trend to the creation of regional rail system, and high-level discussions are underway. Major HSR stations should have easy interfaces with metro lines and district circulators. Intermodality should be on the agenda for Mideast Rail 2016.