… about the metro in Dubai.

Got in a taxi around 10pm the other night (just back from a Focus Group with expats) when the cab driver pointed at an empty train. “All the time empty” … “You know, the [taxi] business is same same. No difference”… “You go take the metro, when you arrive, you wait for a cab, and because Dubai is so big, you go all the way around… same distance… And you pay two times”.

Alright, I’ve made a quick sketch so you understand what he says. Dubai metro line is located on one side of a huge highway that cuts the city in two, a real boundary… you basically need a car to cross it, so if you happen to want to go somewhere on the other side you’ll have to wait for a cab to come by, then take it… and because exits are scarce, you end up traveling twice the same distance… ?!

Why blogging this? If the metro had reached Abu Dhabi, I would have taken it every weekend! This story illustrates the lack of pre-planning studies / thinking intermodality and/or multimodality.