Technical snag forces Dubai Metro to go slow

Dubai Metro passengers have reported service disruptions Sunday morning, with some trains stalling and others moving ‘at snail’s pace’ due to technical problems.

Passengers were asked to disembark from the train at the DIFC station in the afternoon after the gates failed to open for at least 10 minutes after the train stopped with a shudder at the station, according to passengers travelling on the train.

An RTA information service official confirmed to Emirates 24/7 that both the Red and Green lines of the metro were running slow, in both directions, due to “some technical issues.” The customer service official said she wasn’t aware about how long the disruptions might last.

According to passengers, the train moving towards Rashidiya stalled at the Al Karama metro station for about half an hour, while it remained stationary for about 20 minutes at the DIFC station this afternoon.

Afia Kamran, a housewife from Abu Dhabi, told this website that she was very disappointed with the metro, as it was her first time on the train, and she had brought along her family to enjoy the trip. “I am travelling on the metro for the first time, and am extremely disappointed. I got my family along to get a feel of it,” said the lady who was on a “joyride” trip, travelling from Ibn Batuta station to Rashidiya and back, along with her two children and an elderly couple.

Bhagya Lakshmi Muthucumar, a Dubai student who is a regular passenger on the metro, said she wasn’t worried because of the intermittent stalling of the trains. “I’m not worried because this has happened in the past too,” she said.

According to another passenger, the train towards Rashidiya that left the First Gulf Bank station at 11.52am stopped at the Burj Khalifa metro station with a bump and remained motionless for about 5 minutes. There was an announcement made on the internal system urging passengers to not panic, and that the train had stalled due to a ‘technical problem’.

In fact, according to some passengers, the issues have been continuing since yesterday morning, when a train going towards Jebel Ali was stuck for about half an hour at the Dubai Mall station at 9am. Passengers reported that after the train finally moved, they heard an announcement at the next station that the train in the opposite direction (towards Rashidiya) was stalled.

“The metro was moving at a snail’s pace,” said another passenger who disembarked at the Al Karama station. “I think it started from the Dubai Mall station at one-third its normal speed, and was slow all along,” she said.

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