By Ashfaq Ahmed, Chief Reporter www.gulfnews.com
Dubai: “My City My Metro”, a campaign launched to promote the Dubai Metro, aims at winning the hearts and minds of the people to encourage them to use the service once it’s launched on September 9, said a senior official.
“The prime challenge confronting us today is how to orient and transform the habits of people and explore how to educate them on the benefits that will persuade them to switch to public transport in general and the Dubai Metro in particular,” said Payman Younis Parham, Director of Marketing and Corporate Communication at the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).
“The Metro is bound to have a lasting effect on the mobility habits of visitors and inhabitants of the city. This multi-faceted impact takes numerous forms which will ultimately impact the lifestyle of people,” he added.
“The more comfort the people feel in using public transport modes, the higher the rate of ridership. For this reason and others public transport modes have become an integral part of the general policies applicable as a tool to curb psychological pressure, traffic bottlenecks, accidents, noise, pollution and power consumption.”
When completed, Dubai Metro will be the longest automated driverless metro system in the world, and the first of its kind in the Middle East.
The giant project was undertaken in a bid to alleviate the intensity of aggravating traffic bottlenecks while improving accessibility to several giant property developments in the emirate.
When finished, Dubai Metro lines will extend 76km with 47 stations, including nine underground stations. Work is currently being carried out to construct two lines and plan three others. It is estimated the metro will be used on average by about 1.2 million commuters per day, 27,000 commuters per hour per line and 355 million commuters per annum, when the two lines are in full operation. The metro is likely to account for 12 per cent of total mobility in Dubai.
To bolster this massive project, a marketing campaign was launched in April in coordination with Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Agency.
The core of the campaign revolves around the findings of an extensive research carried out by the RTA, which revealed a number of prevailing perceptions among people towards public transport in Dubai.
