By Elsa Baxter www.arabianbusiness.com
More than 110,000 people made a journey on Dubai Metro during its first two days of operation – almost 10 percent of the population.
According to a report in the National, 67,000 passengers used the network on Thursday and 47,000 the following day.
Despite problems on Friday, when a breakdown of services left hundreds of passengers stranded, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) was optimistic.
“It was a fantastic two days for the RTA,” said Peyman Younes Parham, director of marketing and corporate communications for the RTA. “We’ve actually had 67,000 people come to the Metro stations on Thursday, which was above any expectation we had.
“For this soft opening of 10 stations, it’s breathtaking to see the numbers coming out to support the Metro.”
The RTA anticipated some 3,500 passengers would travel on the Red Line per hour in each direction, but in fact an average of 4,071 people per hour used the service in the first 28 hours.
Problems with trains running behind schedule and faulty ticket machines lessened throughout Saturday and by lunchtime services were as normal by the afternoon, the paper said.
Text messages were sent out to passengers to remind them not to “abuse the system” a reference to those who had pressed emergency buttons on trains on Friday, causing disruptions to services.
