by Andy Sambidge www.arabianbusiness.com
Fifty-nine percent of Dubai residents polled in a YouGov lifestyle survey said they had yet to travel on the city’s metro system.
The poll, which quizzed 1,500 UAE residents during October, also revealed that just three percent of Dubai residents used the rail link daily.
Seven percent of respondents living in the city said they used Dubai Metro, which opened on September 9, 2-3 times a week, another seven percent said they travelled on the system once a week while 25 percent used it “less often”.
Asked whether they would use the transport link regularly once all the stations opened – only 10 of 29 stations are currently open on the Red Line – 29 percent of Dubai respondents said they would.
A further 44 percent said they would consider it while 21 percent said they would still not use the metro.
And only three percent of respondents said they had seen a “great” reduction in traffic on Dubai roads since the metro had begun operations.
A further 21 percent said traffic had fallen slightly while 61 percent of people had noticed no difference.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Dubai Metro train service availability has been 98 percent and more than 95 percent of trains have run on time since its launch.
Ramadan Abdullah, director of operations at the Rail Agency of the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), also said more staff have been employed to crack down on passenger violations.
Abdullah added that more than 2.5 million people had so far used the metro station, averaging about 57,000 passengers per day.
