School buses cause only 13% of morning rush

The school transport sector in Dubai faces multiple challenges, including the "geographical distribution of schools".

Stop blaming the morning rush hours on schools buses. The school bus trips accounted only for 13 per cent of the total volume of trips during the morning rush hours in Dubai, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has revealed. As per the statistics, the number of students in public and private schools last year in Dubai was about 295,000.
Mattar Al Tayer, director-general and chairman of the board of executive directors of RTA, said: "The number of school buses registered in the traffic system has reached 6,500 so far and is expected to rise to 7,628 by 2020 and 14,455 by 2030," said Al Tayer.
"The school transport centre is witnessing a rapid growth, where school transport trips exceeded 81,000 per hour and is set to reach 115,000 trips per hour by 2020, and 176,000 by 2030."
The school transport sector in Dubai faces multiple challenges, including the "geographical distribution of schools", according to Al Tayer. "Sixty-two per cent of schools are localised in Deira and 38 per cent in Bur Dubai, which results in high pressure on the roads network adjacent to schools.
"Challenges also include the low percentage of school bus users, as reflected in its 11 per cent share of total schools trips, compared to 32 per cent in the United States. 
This means that 88 per cent of students in Dubai use private vehicles to travel to their schools, which would increase congestion and environmental pollution. This is aggravated by the low occupancy rate of school buses - 53 per cent," said Al Tayer.
Students using mass transport means is still limited - at just one per cent of the total number of mass transit users. The RTA has upgraded the technical specifications of school buses and defined the responsibilities of operators, schools and parents in order to improve safety and security.
Through a comprehensive study for managing the demand on transport, the RTA is currently studying flexible working hours and staggering the working hours and school hours.
"The RTA also intends to conduct a comprehensive study on the school transport sector to come up with solutions and guidelines related to the distribution of schools and their integration with the roads and transport network. These are in addition to surveying school areas and figuring out traffic solutions," said the RTA in a Press statement.
The entity is also set to enact legislations and incentive programmes to streamline the school transport sector and encourage students to use school buses and mass transit means. "It also intends to review the technical specifications of school buses to raise the efficiency and safety levels and study the current working models of the school transport to bring them in line with the global standards.
"Such endeavours would contribute to raising the school transport efficiency, and significantly reducing the number of the required school buses in order to ease traffic snarls leading to schools and surrounding areas," the chairman of the board of executive directors of RTA, said. 
reporters@khaleejtimes.com
 

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