Dubai's multi-billion dirham plan for a new 12-lane motorway linked to Abu Dhabi and Sharjah is primed to ease the strain on the emirate's road network, boost safety and prepare for future demand, transport experts have said.
The 80km road - announced on Wednesday - between Al Faya Road in Abu Dhabi and Al Shanouf Road in Sharjah is intended to cut congestion, improve travel times and boost connectivity to the emerging transport links of Etihad Rail and Al Maktoum International Airport.
Joseph Salem, partner and head of the travel, transportation and hospitality practice at Arthur D Little Middle East, a consultancy that has worked on projects with Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), said that for nearly two decades, Dubai’s inter-emirate traffic had relied on three roads – Sheikh Zayed Road, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Road and the Emirates Road.
“This fourth corridor gives the network a fourth spine, rather than asking the same three roads to absorb more growth. It’s more a rebalancing,” he said. It means that Dubai can “build capacity ahead of demand”, which he described as the ideal sequence for a growing city.
“What makes me confident that this will work rather than just looking good on paper is that the new corridor is designed to divert a significant share of existing traffic on to a higher-capacity route, rather than just adding pressure to the current network. That’s the correct design philosophy,” he said.
Roads remain vital amid public transport push
Elisabetta Cherchi, professor of civil and urban engineering at New York University Abu Dhabi, said the fourth corridor might be justified “if demand along the corridor is sufficient to support both the railway (and metro) and the new highway”.
She indicated that new roads may be seen as necessary despite investments in new Dubai Metro lines and Etihad Rail because “it is challenging for railway systems to be fully competitive with highways”, as additional incentives were often needed to encourage their use.
With the new motorway being built to connect directly to Al Maktoum International Airport and Etihad Rail, Mr Salem said it will be well integrated into the existing road and mass-transit systems.
“[This] matters because Al Maktoum is the anchor of Dubai’s next growth ring that goes around aviation, logistics and the residential and commercial districts that are arising around it,” he said. “It means that the airport, the freight rail backbone and the road system come together in an integrated system, rather than three projects competing for the same corridor later on.”
He said that while public transport was “extremely efficient for dense urban trips”, there is still a heavy reliance on roads for freight, cross-emirate commuting and airport access.
“Rail and road are not and should not be competing for investment here,” he said. “They are two halves of the same strategy, and this project perfectly aligns with the Dubai 2040 masterplan that calls to expand road, rail, airports and ports together to support that growth.”
Serving a growing city
Major residential and development areas such as Dubailand, Al Awir, Al Yalayis, Madinat Hind and Madinat Latifa will be served by the new motorway.
It will have 17 tunnels, 72 bridges and 45 storm-water drainage culverts, and each hour will accommodate up to 24,000 vehicles in both directions. It is expected to lead to significant reductions in some journey times.
The first phase, priced at Dh3.5 billion, will run from Al Shanouf Road to the Dubai – Al Ain Road, while phase two will go between the Dubai – Al Ain Road and Al Faya Road in Abu Dhabi.
Mr Salem said the project would be “very challenging in terms of design, in terms of investment, in terms of execution”, but he said Dubai had “proven over and over that it delivers”.
Large-scale project
“There are many challenges when it comes to engineering, land co-ordination, multi-emirate sequencing, and you have the governance element, but the track record has shown that such projects, with this scale, this complexity, with this ambitious timeline, are what Dubai is about,” he said.
Dr Lijo John, an assistant professor in logistics and supply chain management at Heriot-Watt University Dubai, said the engineering challenges were “considerable”, as with 72 bridges and 17 tunnels, there is more than one major structure per kilometre.
“This is as much a structures programme as a road,” he said. “Engineers must build ties to live highways without halting traffic, stabilise sandy subgrades and specify asphalt that resists rutting at surface temperatures above 60°C. The 45 drainage culverts matter more after April 2024’s record rainfall.”
He said co-ordinating the different phases between multiple emirates would make the management of the project more complex.
Safety boost
Thomas Edelmann, founder and managing director of Road-Safety UAE, said the authorities have “done sufficient research to substantiate another multi-billion dirhams investment”.
“For sure, the increase in road surface will, at least for a certain period of time, help smooth traffic, with all associated benefits like less congestion, shorter travel times, less stress and hopefully fewer accidents as motorists do not feel cornered in traffic congestion,” he said.
He said, though, that dependency on road transport in the UAE was “very high”, with the organisation’s own research in 2025 finding that 92 per cent of residents rely on it daily. “The paradox situation is that the creation of additional roads does attract additional traffic and often the positive effects are short-lived,” he added.
Dr John also cautioned that new capacity could cause drivers to make additional trips “until peak congestion returns”.
“The lasting benefit will depend on pairing the corridor with demand-management measures, such as road pricing, off-peak freight scheduling and flexible working, which is why integrating it with the multimodal transport systems such as Etihad Rail matters,” Dr John said.
Mr Edelman said it was important to also promote other initiatives, such as non-road public transport.
“The extension of Etihad Rail is a great first step – in addition to the extension of the Dubai Metro network – but stronger inter-emirates rail-bound or metro connectivity on the key corridors like Sharjah – Dubai and others should be considered. Working from home and carpooling are also high on the list,” he said.
