By Mohamed Rabah www.gulftoday.ae
THE number of passengers who rode the Dubai Metro on New Year’s Eve reached 178,000. This figure, which represented double the number of passengers who rode the Metro during other holidays, was revealed by the Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).
Director of the Customer Service Department and acting director of Marketing Department, Aisha Abu Sumeat said stations of the Metro witnessed huge public crowds who preferred to use the Metro to reach various locations that were celebrating with fireworks.
The crowds did cause some congestion at some stations, including the Burj Khalifa station that received the highest number of 500,000 passengers, who were drawn to the fireworks display at the iconic tower, she added.
n order to contain the crowds, she pointed out that the Authority had altered the train frequency to 5 minutes. Besides, at least 4 officials at each station were positioned. She denied occurrence of any technical problems, whether at stations or in carriages, asserting that the operations processes passed off peacefully despite the heavy pressure, which led the Authority to open the exit gates of stations to avoid congestion and any stampedes.
Also the number of customer services agents was increased to attend to passenger inquiries, particularly at exit and entrance gates. She added that on the occasion of New Year’s Eve, the
The Authority had initially decided to extend train operations by 3 hours to 3am. As a result of which, the last train started from Ibn Battuta and Al Rashdeyah stations at 2am, but due to the heavy crowds, it had to further extend operations by another 90 minutes to 4.30am for the benefit of the public, she added.
