More than one player in RTA's feeder fleet

Dubai's Road Transport Authority (RTA) has awarded contracts for "feeder buses" for the upcoming Metro to more than one player, said managing director of a company that recently supplied 518 buses to the authority.

"As of now, between us and Mercedes, there are about 750 buses," Samar Roy, MD, Al Naboodah Commercial Group, told Emirates Business.

Al Naboodah Commercial Group is supplying buses manufactured by VDL, a Dutch company.

The buses are part of the RTA's strategy to ensure that the maximum time a person needs to walk to avail Metro service is 10 minutes.

"That's from a person's residence to the point where he can hop on to a feeder bus to carry him over to the nearest Metro station," said Roy.

Clarifying a confusion in the market over the contract terms of the RTA, in which the deal for maintenance was valued higher than the price of the buses, Roy said the valuations vary as maintenance will be carried out over a period of eight years and as stringent norms have been established for maintenance.

"There is a clause in the contract that on any particular day, 95 per cent of our buses need to be on the roads. It's an achievable task and we investing for it, which includes setting up a workshop," Roy said.

While the total cost of the VDL buses was put at $850 million, the maintenance contract for them was estimated to be $1.05 billion, and these figures raised eyebrows in the market.

The first batch of these buses will be supplied next week, said Roy.

Besides Dubai, the company is looking forward to tender for business in Abu Dhabi, he added.

In Dubai, the RTA operates about 700 buses and expects to increase this to 2,000 by the time the Metro's Red Line opens in September.

In Abu Dhabi, the Department of Transport expects to have 1,360 buses on the road by the end of next year.

The plan to have the "feeder buses" in Dubai had evolved three years before Dubai went ahead with its Metro project, said Roy.

"It is the result of a study of cities where similar transport system exists. Ten minutes is the standard period of time that a person needs to travel to take public transport," said Roy.

 

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