In Abu Dhabi you’ll not be far from a bus stop

Abu Dhabi will soon see an increase in the number of bus stops along the existing routes in an effort to improve accessibility to this most popular means of public transportation in the emirate. Access to the existing bus stops will also be perked up.

A public tender for the construction and modification of 300 bus stops in Abu Dhabi city and the suburbs was published this week by the Department of Transportation (DoT).

Currently, the average access time of a bus stop in the capital is 15 minutes. The distance to a bus stop from the point of origin is 635 meters on average, while from the point of alighting to the destination this amounts to 643 meters, explained Badreya Al Kaabi, Public Transport Planner at the DoT.

The objective of the department is to reduce the average distance from and to a bus stop to 300 meters.

Further, accessibility to the bus stop will be improved through the construction and modification of road pavements, sidewalks, parking areas, street lighting, road signage etc.

With the city metro still under construction, the bus network forms an important part of the public transportation network in the capital. In a survey carried out among nearly 17,000 bus passengers, 57 per cent of the respondents said to be frequent bus users.

According to the same survey, bus users are most likely to walk to the nearest bus stop, with 76 per cent claiming to go on foot, while 8 per cent being dropped off by somebody else, and 3,1 per cent taking a cab.

The bus network of the DoT covers Abu Dhabi City, the Western Region and Al Ain, with a total length of 353,549km divided over 15,978 trips.

Last year, the authority embarked on the third leap of a project expanding the air-conditioned bus shelters across the emirate, although reports have suggested that bus shelters with a breeze are not sufficient in the emirate.

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