Author : editor
Three Dubai-Sharjah routes have been scrapped due to a lukewarm response from commuters, a senior Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) official said.
The scrapped bus routes are: Route 301 which runs between Al Rashidiya Metro Station in Dubai and Al Jubail Station in Sharjah, Route 308 which connects Jebel Ali Metro Station in Dubai to Al Jubail Station in Sharjah, and Route 309 that shuttles between Al Qouz Industrial Area and Al Waha Village to Al Jubail Station in Sharjah.
The decision, which will cut the number of routes running between the emirates from six to three, will come into effect from today, February 1 2011, leaving hundreds of commuters depending on the services to scramble for the alternatives.
However, the Director of Strategic Planning and Business Development at RTA’s Public Transport Agency, Mohammed Abubaker Al Hashemi, contends that the cancellation won’t affect many people “because the routes weren’t very popular.”
“The decision was made after a thorough study of the ridership on the routes and response for these three services was found to be very negligible. Running the services with such negligible numbers was not economically feasible,” said Al Hashemi.
According to a source in RTA the routes were attracting less than thirty per cent occupancy, which well below the average ridership on other routes.
He added that RTA as a policy keeps reviewing all its services every three to six months and if there is good demand for any particular service or route it could be reinstated.
When asked whether the recent hike in fares had caused a dip in demand, Al Hashemi said that fares were not increased on these particular routes which have been Dhs10 on each direction since their inception.
Currently, all the Sharjah-Dubai routes E304 to Satwa, E306 to Bur Dubai and E307 to Deira start from Al Jubail Station in Sharjah, however, this is going to change soon as the RTA is working Sharjah Transport to start intercity services from other areas of Sharjah.
“We are currently studying several routes and working closely with Sharjah Transport for implementation of the plans, we might add a few new routes from other areas of Sharjah in the next few months depending on the response we get to our surveys,” informed Hashemi.Around 25,000 people travel daily on the intercity buses between Dubai and Sharjah, mainly on the three main routes of Satwa, Bur Dubai and Deira, with buses running every 15 minutes.
Source : khaleejtimes.com
