Inter-City Bus Department of RTA reviews its achievements in a year

Attending the presentation were directors of the Agency's departments and a number of its employees.

Al Mulla reaffirmed that the Public Transport Agency of all its departments always endeavors to evolve its mechanism through delivering a number of innovative solutions based on the RTA's strategic initiatives stemming from its vision of providing 'Safe and Smooth Transport for All,' as well as developing the type of services it delivers to the public in a way that tones with Dubai's position regionally and internationally in all trade, economic, service, financial, real estate, tourism and other vital sectors.

"The Public Transport Agency (PTA) is dedicated to lay down an integrated plan to develop the services the Inter-City Bus Department is delivering to the public with the addition of 170 new and sophisticated buses linking Dubai with the capital city of Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, RAK, Fujairah and the key towns of Al Ain, Al Dhed, Masafi and Jebel Ali.

45 new and sophisticated buses were added to the service the current month provided that the remaining 125 buses early next year. These buses would deliver flight class services, as well as provide wireless Internet connection, telephone, fax, screens and rest rooms. The buses' floors would be designed to address the requirements of the special needs people. The decision of raising the number of Inter-City Buses taken to tone with the growing number of commuters as a result of the demographical expansion the UAE is experiencing, and we expect that the number of commuters would rise to 11 million by end of this year," added Al Mulla.

He said: "The vision of the Inter-City Bus Department can be summarized to link Dubai with all the UAE towns and villages via regular and developed lines, open up international lines between the UAE and neighboring countries through providing world class services characterized by security, safety and competitive fares, achieve revenues ensuring the profitability for the PTA and the continuity of servicing in a studied and developed way, in addition to attract national personnel and train them to effectively contribute to develop and evolve this significant sector."

He added that the Inter-City Bus Department is currently considering the execution of a number of future innovative projects and develop the type of services it delivers including the mobile station, one of the innovative solutions, to service at the most crowded areas and the seasonal lines to ensure the traffic smoothness, activate Hatta's station by transferring the lines heading for Hatta to be within the Inter-City Bus Department's activities through activating internal lines to Hatta, as well as linking Hatta with other emirates, activating Fujairah's line towards Dubai, opening up internal lines in Ajman, operating special service for the World Trade Center (go event) to cater to the visitors and participants in the exhibitions and conferences coming from Abu Dhabi and Sharjah down to Dubai. Among other activities, the Department endeavors to deliver weather on RTA's corporate level or on Dubai's is highlighting its role to effectively partake in the social events through opening up transport lines to the Global Village during the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF), organizing an annual gathering to honor the outstanding drivers as a motivator for the best, effectively participating in the Holy month Ramadan by extending the operation hours to stay up late and raising the awareness among the Inter-City Bus commuters.

Al Mulla concluded that the Inter-City Bus Department pursues to achieve a number of objectives and strategic initiatives of the RTA to ensure the delivery of the best services to the public, work on making annual Returns on Investments (ROI), inaugurate new national outlets, expand regionally through enhancing strategic relations based on the mutual benefits between the RTA and different clients whether in the UAE or abroad.

The Inter-City Bus Department launched a number of new lines end of last month including the line coming from the labor accommodation in Al Qusais to Rolla in Sharjah, the line coming from Muraqqabat to the same and the line from Al Ittihad Square to the Industrial Area in Sharjah (Al Wasit). The Department expects that the daily number of commuters on these lines combined will reach 7 thousand a day carried through 29 buses.