ABU DHABI, (Pakistan Point News - 16th Apr, 2020) The Integrated Transport Centre, ITC, of the Department of Municipalities and Transport in Abu Dhabi announced that 1,091,580 transactions were completed during the first quarter of 2020, including different services offered to individuals and public transport users to enhance the safety and security of the transport network in Abu Dhabi.
During the first quarter, the public demand for public buses, taxis and smart transport sectors increased.
To maintain safety, the ITC in cooperation with its stakeholders conducted a sterilising campaign targetting its public transport buses, school buses, taxis, ferries and related facilities.
It also implemented disinfection gates at the entrance of the Abu Dhabi and Al Ain Main Bus Stations, which detect passengers entering and spray eco-friendly sterilising products automatically.
Under the supervision of the Student’s Safety System team at ITC, all the precautionary measures were undertaken to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and protect 405,000 students, 4900 supervisors and 7625 school bus drivers.
In appreciation of the efforts put in by healthcare providers to control the coronavirus outbreak, a bus on-demand service was launched, "Abu Dhabi Healthcare Link", offered for free to employees in the medical sector to transport them between their homes and places of work.
To support the public during this period, the ITC launched the Taxi Delivery Service for Sales Outlets Initiative, in cooperation with the Department of Economic Development. As per the initiative, ITC offers taxis to sales outlets to be used as home delivery services to ensure the public’s safety. In the first three days after its launch, 477 orders were delivered using 230 taxis.
During the first quarter, 896,204 online transactions were completed out of a total of 1,091,580 transactions, which is 82.33 percent of the total number.
Public buses conducted around 18.4 million trips. The fleet consists of 632 buses, of which 410 are in Abu Dhabi and its suburbs, 152 are in Al Ain City and 70 buses are in Al Dhafra Region.
To enhance the public bus network in Abu Dhabi, the ITC added 148 new Mercedes (Sprinter and Citaro), and Volvo buses and started operating 86 of them.
Taxis were used by 19.8 million passengers and 11 million trips were conducted by 6,390 vehicles from eight operating companies. As part of the ITC’s endeavour to limit greenhouse emissions, hybrid taxi vehicles in the emirate reached 5,339, which is 83.6 percent of the total number of taxis.
Some 19 new Emirati captains joined the taxi team to work for Uber and Careem. Thus, the total number of Emirati captains reached 105, and they conducted 12,086 trips.
Uber and Careem registered 955 vehicles working as taxis and 461,687 trips were conducted, which is an average of 5,130 trips a day.
Careem expanded its services to include Al Falah, Al Shamkhah, Bani Yas, Al Shawamekh and Al Shahama. Additionally, an online chat service between the driver and the passenger was launched.
The Traffic System Management, TMC, announced that Road Service Patrols received 5,747 reports. Additionally, TMC offered 11 patrols to support the National Disinfection Programme.
To eliminate random parking, ITC introduced 5,198 parking spaces in Al Ain among four sectors: sector 8B (Al Hosn), sector 13 (Al Murabaa), sector 14 (Al Kuwaitat) and sector 15 (Al Neyadat).
Operated by six companies, 4,165 e-scooters were used by 286,705 users. The number of passengers who travelled using ferry services was 13,301, in addition to the 2,938 vehicles that were transported.
