Coming soon, fast food at superfast speed in Dubai

Fast food. Corbis photo

Dubai residents can now expect to benefit from faster delivery of food with popular food chains implementing the Dubai Municipality's smart addressing system, Makani. The system will also help foodies locate unfamiliar restaurants faster.
The municipality on Thursday signed an agreement with 10 major restaurant and bakery groups in Dubai to provide them the technical support to use the Makani application which uses 10 digit geo-coordinates for each building's entrance to give precise location.
Abdul-Hakim Malik, director of the GIS Department at the municipality said the use of Makani application by popular eateries is expected to increase the popularity of the service.
"It will benefit both restaurants and customers. Once the restaurant employees and drivers are trained to use the system, they can identify the locations of customers without hassle. Customers also don't have to spend a lot of time explaining directions," he told Khaleej Times after the signing ceremony at the municipality.
The official expects that the use of Makani will help cut the delay in food deliveries to new customers down to 70 to 90 percent. That means the customers who give their building's Makani number to the restaurants can expect their food to be delivered much faster than when they used to be delivered using the traditional way of explaining the locations using landmarks and road directions.
Among the groups that signed the agreement are Americana, which runs a large group of eateries like KFC, Pizza Hut, Hardee's, Chicken Tikka and Al Samadi Sweets, as well as McDonald's, Automatic Restaurant and Al Reef Lebanese Restaurant.
The municipality expects that the rest of the food establishments in Dubai will follow suit. "We hope others will also start using Makani. If they want our support, they need to sign the agreement with us. It will be a free service. But, we will not hold any more events for that as today's event was held to give it a start and create public awareness," said Malik.
Makani plates
The official said most buildings in Dubai have already been given their Makani numbers. A project to stick Makani plates on each building will begin by the end of October.
"We hope to provide Makani plates to the whole of Dubai including the free zones by June 2016." He said those who do not know their building's 10-digit geo-coordinates can easily access them from the Makani mobile app or on www.makani.ae on their desktop."You can click or touch on a building and then click on the pin that pops up. That will show the Makani number," he explained.
Assistant director-general for engineering and planning Abdullah Raffia said the municipality is coordinating with government and private sectors to ensure the use of the smart navigation and addressing system across Dubai to help people find locations faster and easier. He said the plan is to expand the system across the country.
The Dubai Police has already started implementing it. The police are also providing the location service to ambulances if people ring up 999 and give them their Makani number, said Malik.The civil defence and the ambu-lance departments are modifying their systems to incorporate Ma-kani, he said, adding that the Real Estate Regulatory Agency is also supporting the system by including the Makani number of buildings on their rental contract.
sajila@khaleejtimes.com