In the age of the metro and air taxis, will we still be travelling on buses in Dubai years from now?

Evidence from around the world suggests that rail-based urban transit does not squeeze out traditional bus services and may even help them to grow

Dubai is continuing to invest heavily in its bus network. Photo: RTA

Anyone settling into their seat on the metro at Dubai International Airport and contemplating a glide across the city, perhaps as far as the Expo 2020 station tens of kilometres away, might wonder why they would ever travel on a bus again.

The humble bus can easily appear to be a product of a bygone era in a progressive city in which multibillion-dirham rail projects and plans for flying taxis are taking shape.

As construction continues apace on Dubai Metro’s Blue Line, which will complement the existing red and green lines, and as the city looks ahead to the launch of even electric air taxis, could the bus slide further down the transport food chain?

If evidence from around the world is anything to go by, the answer is probably to be no, because even when a city invests heavily in top-line rail-based transit – metro and tram lines are often built along what were the busiest few bus routes – buses still play a vital role.

Peter White, professor emeritus at the University of Westminster in the UK and a steering group member for a 2018 report, Buses in Urban Developments, says that buses are sometimes easier to access than metro stations with steps and lifts.

Serving communities

They also tend to be better suited to areas with lower density of population, enabling a more comprehensive public transport network to be provided.

“It may also be important to continue to offer some bus services running parallel to a new urban rail line, to avoid undue interchange for short trips, and to cater for those unable to walk the longer distances to urban rail stations – typically with a substantially wider spacing than bus stops,” says Prof White, who is the author of the textbook Public Transport: Its Planning, Management and Operation.

Dubai is upgrading bus stations to help make journeys more comfortable. Photo: RTA

When a metro or tram system is developed, factors such as the reconfiguration of bus networks often lead to a growth in bus ridership.

Dr Alexander Wray, a transport researcher at Western University in Canada, has seen the bus system flourish in his hometown of Kitchener-Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, since the city’s tram system opened in 2019.

While there was a fall in the number of buses on the road, Dr Wray says that ridership grew as new bus services to connect to tram stations were inaugurated. Another key factor behind the growth in passenger numbers was, he says, increases in bus frequency.

“From the evidence, we know what people look for is the ability to just walk up to a stop and know that there’s a vehicle coming in the next 10 minutes. That breeds confidence in a transit system,” Dr Wray says.

While cutting the wait times between buses is seen as the key factor that draws in passengers, making buses more comfortable also helps.

“Generally all the modern buses tend to have Wi-Fi and power points, and there’s a bit more effort being put into the quality of bus services to make them more competitive with the car,” says Peter Jones, professor of transport and sustainable development at University College London and a former member of the Dubai Future Council for Transportation.

Boosting connectivity

Many other cities demonstrate the continued relevance of bus services even when rail-based transit is on offer.

In Nottingham in England and Edinburgh in Scotland, Prof White says, the trams serve only a few corridors, whereas the buses provide comprehensive networks.

Buses carried 41.6 million passengers in Nottingham in 2023-24, compared to 15.5 million on the tramway, while in Edinburgh the difference was even greater, with 110 million bus trips in 2023 compared to 10.1 million tram journeys.

“Both [Edinburgh and Nottingham bus] operators run very modern fleets, with a strong emphasis on high quality of service and passenger information,” Prof White says.

“Services run largely on a commercial basis – that is, covering costs, including provision of vehicles, from passenger revenue, after allowing for compensation for free concessionary travel, and a grant received by all local bus services.”

In suburban North America the technology-driven emergence of bus services that ply flexible rather than fixed routes has been seen.

The bus goes to where the passengers are, something that can be particularly helpful for, for example, people with mobility issues or those who do not drive.

“We also see them in some rural areas in North America where it just doesn’t make sense to run a fixed route service at all,” Dr Wray says.

“So they operate almost like a shared Uber in that it’s like a small 15, 20-passenger bus that’s just driving around all day. And you’re booking your times and where you need to go.

“The app and the algorithm will match you up with the next available good routing for that vehicle. So it’s never following a fixed route: it’s meeting demand where it is.”

In Dubai, the bus services on offer are continuing to improve just as the number of passengers using them increases: the number of bus journeys made in the emirate last year increased by eight per cent to 188 million.

The Roads and Transport Authority previously announced that it was upgrading stations and depots and aiming to achieve “seamless connectivity” with the Metro and taxis. The fleet itself is enjoying an uplift, with hundreds of low-emission buses on order along with 40 all-electric vehicles.

While analysts say that investment in buses often lags behind that of urban rail, Dubai passengers are set to see improvements.

So in the UAE, as in many other places, if urban rail – or even electric air taxi – transport grows, the bus will retain a central role in helping everyone to get around.