Wide leather seats on Metro

Five-car trains will have a luxury 'gold class' at the front for those who demand a bit of luxury.

A Metro train on a trial run near Al Karama station.

Commuters using the Metro will be able to enjoy some of the most luxurious facilities yet seen on an urban railway system. While many travellers in cities such as London, Yerevan and Kiev are used to being herded on board grimy rolling stock at rush hour, Dubai passengers will have the option of relaxing in wide leather seats as they enjoy panoramic views from the driverless train.

The trains themselves have been built in Osaka by the Japanese company Kinki Sharyo through a contract reported to be worth US$456.2 million (Dh1.7bn). The first trains reached the UAE in March last year for trials on the 14km stretch of track between the Jebel Ali Industrial and Ibn Battuta Mall stations. Painted in a distinctive blue and silver livery, each five-car train consists of four silver-class carriages and one divided between the luxurious gold-class section and a compartment exclusively for women and children.

It is unusual for a metro system to have more than one class, but with just 18 wide leather seats, the luxurious alternative to the standard service is intended to attract high-end commuters who might otherwise not have considered giving up their cars. The silver-class cars, with an air and water theme, are coloured green and blue inside and have varied arrangements of their 25 to 27 seats. Some are arranged in airliner style, while others allow passengers to sit facing one another. There will also be plenty of handles for standing passengers to grip.

In the women's and children's section there will be extra space for pushchairs and buggies, with 12 seats and three flip-up chairs. "The elderly, injured, people with special needs and pregnant women will have the choice of priority seating," the RTA said in a statement. "The compartments will be equipped with audio visual devices, passenger information displays and public address in Arabic and English."

The RTA has also promised that "clear signage" will show the route map of the Metro and give other useful information. For passenger safety, closed circuit television cameras will record events on the trains, and wireless coverage will be available for internet users. In Osaka, Kinki Sharyo has been carrying out both the manufacturing of the body parts and the fitting of the many systems and pieces of equipment each car needs.

Each train takes about a year to build, with systems being supplied by companies such as Mitsubishi Electric and Alcatel-Lucent. After being built in Osaka, the trains are taken by land to the port of Kobe before being shipped to Dubai. A total of 44 sets were due to be delivered in time for the start of operations this month. Each train is 85.5 metres long, made up of front and back cars that measure 17.55 metres and three middle cars that stretch 16.8 metres in length.

Each train can carry up to 897 passengers, most of them standing at peak times. Kinki Sharyo is supplying a total of 87 five-car trains, 62 of which are earmarked for the Red Line, which opens this week, and 25 for the Green Line, which opens next year, giving a total of 435 cars. The company was founded in 1920 as the Tanaka Rolling Stock Works and was renamed Kinki Sharyo in 1945. It has supplied cars for a number of metro systems in cities such as Cairo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Manila, Dallas, Los Angeles and Boston, as well as building trains for a host of projects in Japan itself.