That means more than 1.5 million people are using public transport every day.

New figures released by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) show that 275,772,000 rides were taken on public transport in the first half of 2017. It’s an increase of over 2 million rides versus the same period last year.

The RTA announced that the average daily number of ‘riders’ on Dubai’s public transport in 2017 so far are 1.507 million.

The metro beat RTA taxis to be deemed the most popular mode of transport, with 36.4% of all rides being taken on the metro, vs 31.7% of riders using taxis. Public buses were revealed as the third most popular, at 28%. The tram and marine transport methods (that’s abra, ferry, water taxi and water bus) made up the remaining 3.5%.

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“The public transport means have now become the backbone of people mobility in various parts of Dubai, and the preferred transit option for a huge segment of Dubai residents and visitors,” explained the RTA’s director general.

He cited ‘huge and diverse’ projects by the RTA as one of the key contributors for the increased use, as well as a focus on providing integrated services. Basically, this means providing constant improvements across the network. It also means broadening the road network, and continuing to improve technology to ensure the highest efficiency of all systems.

This will hopefully reduce reliance on private vehicles and increase the public’s reliance on other transit systems, namely public transport.

“RTA is endeavoring to push the share of public transport to 20% by 2020, and 30% by 2030,” explained Al Tayer. It’s an impressive growth from the 6% share of public transport users in 2006.

There’s big plans for the future of Dubai’s public transport too, with 7 new stations and a 15km expansion project planned for the metro. The RTA also plans to focus on encouraging journey-sharing, something that seems to be popping up in a lot of big cities around the world.

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