Despite the region’s vast expanses and varied landscapes, rail travel is far from a novelty in the Middle East. A line between Alexandria and Cairo opened in 1854 and the Hejaz Railway, constructed by the Ottoman Empire between 1900 and 1908, are two examples of early modernisation in the Arab world.
These networks were less about moving people from A to B, however, than they were about trade routes, imperial control and industrialisation. Rail travel as a daily, integrated public transport system linking cities and countries is becoming much more of a critical demand. This week in the UAE, rail travel well and truly arrived.
Tickets have gone on sale for Etihad Rail's long-awaited launch of its passenger services. Yesterday, the national train operator's website showed only limited seats available for the inaugural cross-emirate trips on Tuesday, June 30. The service will take passengers from Abu Dhabi's Mohamed bin Zayed City station to the Fujairah station in Al Hilal City.
For a country long associated with car culture and world-class aviation, rail is a carefully calculated evolution in the transport network. The demand for tickets may partly be fuelled by the novelty of a new way of seeing the country but, with the right approach and execution, rail travel is set to become as routine as road trips between emirates. In time, rail could become as practical as short-haul flights once regional passenger connections across with other GCC rail networks are established.
In a commercial sense, it's a bold and novel step, long in the making. Etihad Rail’s design, comfort and digital-first ticketing point to some high expectations. People in the UAE want comprehensive public transport but still seek a seamless experience. So, although ticket sales are positive, this new beginning is also something of a stress test for the new system. It is vital that service delivery and reliability is carefully managed in the network’s early phases.
But the start of passenger rail in the UAE has some wider implications. Etihad Rail looks set to redefine how the country’s economy functions, linking different regions, spreading opportunity and reducing environmental impact of travel. It will also have consequences for labour mobility, the country’s tourism sector and development outside the Emirates’ main population centres. Freight rail is also an important part of national supply chains and economic resilience, especially at this moment of infrastructure investment and diversification.
From this promising start, the challenge ahead will be to maintain operational excellence. The initial excitement of today is a platform on which to build long-term trust tomorrow. Once that is established, hopping on a train from one coast of the UAE to the other may well become as routine as hopping in one’s car
