The compliance of public buses in Dubai, UAE with the approved timetables had soared from 69 per cent in 2015 to 74 per cent in 2016, said the director-general of the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).

 Bus actual compliance with the scheduled journeys continued to clock 98 per cent in 2015 and 2016. Taxi bookings executed through the Booking & Despatch Center amounted to 7.322 million bookings last year compared to 5.449 million bookings in 2015 recording a robust growth rate of 25.5 per cent, explained Mattar Al Tayer.

“The broadening use of smart & e-systems in public buses and taxis has contributed to the integration of mass transit means in Dubai, improving the operational efficiency, reducing expenses, increasing compliance with timetables and bringing happiness to customers. Last year bus service saw a remarkable growth in bus ridership rising from 134.7 million riders in 2015 to 151.1 million riders in 2016, and the average number of monthly bus journeys made last year was 273,737 journeys,” said Al Tayer.

“The automated bus movement system (Transport Pulse) designed to the world’s top standards contributed to enhancing the communication between the control centre and bus drivers. It monitors the movement of 1514 buses over 274 routes, ensures the timely departure & arrival of buses at stations as per the timetable, and takes necessary action to control the performance & ensure the compliance with the set timetables.

“The Taxi Booking and Despatch Center at Transport Activities Monitoring Department, which handles all taxi booking calls and distributes them to franchise companies according to location, speed and other parameters based on a specific time indicator, has received about 7.8 million calls last year. The number compares well with the volume of calls handled in 2015, which was in the range of 7.2 million calls.

“About 44 per cent of calls last year were responded to through the automated system, and the response time to incoming calls was 30 seconds only. Such a response time is excellent given that the response time recorded in similar booking sections in countries like Canada is 45 seconds and the average call time is 53 seconds. Our average time of despatching a taxi to a customer is 13.85 minutes whereas it takes about 18 minutes to dispatch a taxi in Australia and 15 minutes in Canada,” concluded Al Tayer. – TradeArabia News Service