By Majorie van Leijen  www.emirates247.com
On September 9, 2009, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, inaugurated Dubai’s first Metro line.
It served ten stations and transported just over a million commuters that month.
Today, four years later, Dubai Metro serves two lines, 46 stations and the number of commuters is increasing continuously, crossing the 300 million mark as of last month. By the end-August this year, Dubai Metro had served 312, 097, 588 commuters on both the Red Line and the Green Line, the Road and Transport Authority (RTA) told Emirates 24|7.
This means that in 2013 alone the total number of passengers, since its inception, jumped by almost 50 per cent compared to end-November in 2012, when 213,354 passengers were counted.
Metro commuters are continuously rising. The number of people who used the Metro this August hit 10.5 million, up from 8 million in the same month last year.
A lot has changed since September 9, 2009, the biggest advancement probably being the opening of the Green Line. Only one year after the opening of the Red Line, 18 stations on the Green Line were opened all at once on September 10, 2011. More info and photos