Dubai Chronicles - Transport

Dubai has a very large bus system. These buses are used by a large number of the population. Not only are the buses comfortable and quite frequent, they go easy on the pocket too. The taxis/cabs in Dubai are also widely used, the minimum fare being about 5 dirhams. The body of the cabs seemed to be consistently beige, but the roofs ranged between yellow, orange and red! The drivers of all public transport vehicles have uniforms that are crisp and smart. All vehicles, as also all establishments/buildings are air conditioned to combat the high temperatures.

The buses in Dubai follow some strict rules when it comes to the embarking and disembarking of passengers. While both men and women are allowed to get on to the bus by using the front doors, the men are allowed to disembark only by the rear doors! Getting on to the bus through the front doors helps the driver (who also doubles up as the conductor) to issue the tickets. The minimum fare is a dirham and 50 fils. He takes the money, punches the destination into a small ticket dispensing machine, and then hands over the slip of paper that is the ticket. The seats for men and women are clearly demarcated. Some drivers don't let men sit on the women's seats even if they're empty, although the vice versa is usually without any hitch! The drivers have phones at their ready disposal. In fact, we were witness to an incident while travelling by bus one day. A certain passenger had an altercation with the driver of the bus, which soon reached ugly proportions! The driver promptly pulled over to the side of the road and called the police! The bus was then moved only after the arrival of the police and the settling of matters. It looked like the passenger was let off with some warning, but I'm not sure what exactly transpired outside the bus!

Although the roads in Dubai are almost bereft of any deficiencies, the traffic explosion in the city has made almost all places veritable bottlenecks! Very few residences have the added advantage of parking spots, and most vehicle owners spend a better part of their evenings looking for a spot to rest their cars! In fact, a story that was doing the rounds was of how a person went to drop his friend at the airport, and then ended up searching for a parking spot for so long after nearing the vicinity of his abode that the friend had reached his destination by then!

Of course, the parking spots are paid ones. Any slacking in this payment results in some quite hefty fines, as do the breaking of the slightest of traffic signals/rules.

It can arguably be said that almost all the roads in the city have beautiful flowers adorning the edges, with wide and spotlessly clean sidewalks; wide enough for a whole horizontal line of people to walk together. Unfortunately, the slow pace of the moving traffic often clouds all the other advantages! It is no wonder then that the completion of the Dubai Metro is being awaited very eagerly! It is expected to be done by 2010, and will be a fully automated, driverless system! Most roads in the city have some construction going on this regard, with prominent signs asking pedestrians to keep off the construction areas, as also apologizing for the inconveniences caused. Hopefully, the metro rail system will help minimize a lot of the traffic problems and congestion!



Dubai also has city tour buses, with open roofs, which allow tourists to hop on and off at some prominent points in the city. After having had one's fill of a certain mall/park and the like, a tourist can hop on to the next city tour bus that stops at that place!

A Bus Station