Transport is the key to economic growth of the UAE

The United Arab Emirates in general, and Dubai in particular – are key points of trade and logistics not only in the region, but the whole world. Reexport is an important article of income for this rich city, with the tourist industry growing rapidly lately. The foundation of trade and tourism development is effective and modern transport infrastructure: trade ports, high-speed urban and intercity lines, airpots.

Dubai officials understand the importance of the transport industry in the city’s development very well. Which is why local transport authorities developed a long term infrastructure development plan. The priorities are automation, technology and ecology.

The most ambitious and complex task, from a technical point of view, set by the Dubai transport workers is to increase the share of automated transport in the city to 25% by 2030. Such measure, according to the calculations, should save 44% in transport costs and reduce pollution by 12%. In prospect, a move towards self-driving transport should improve the situation with traffic on the roads and parking spaces in the city.

Dubai transport authorities said in an interview with Gulf News that Dubai Sky Pods is being considered as one of the innovative projects dedicated to improving the Dubai transport system – an urban transportation system, developed by CJSC “String technologies”. Dubai Sky Pods is a futuristic mobility system, whose advantage is high energy efficiency and low material cost of the track structure.

Apart from the Dubai Sky Pods, autonomous air taxi and self-driving modules to solve the “last mile problem” are planned. Increasing the quality of Dubai’s digital infrastructure is also planned – to achieve this, authorities are planning to use artificial intelligence to control traffic, security systems, crisis management and other spheres.

Part of Dubai’s digital strategy, apart from large-scale II implementation, is the use of blockchain-technologies. They are needed by the city to transfer information online and make it faster, more user friendly and safe. With the help of blockchain, Dubai authorities are planning to control document flow, payments for products and services, visa and driving license checks. Digitalization of the state document flow alone, according to the calculations, will save 3 billion dollars.

Stable development of an actively growing city is another important task for transportation workers. In order to ensure the rapidly growing city does not harm the environment, an increase in the use of electric and hybrid cars is planned. For this, taxis in the city park will replace combustion engines with hybrids and electric cars. New passenger buses will be equipped with engines complying with high ecological standards to reduce the harm as well.

Inclusion of SkyWay string transport in Dubai’s infrastructure development strategy – is a farsighted decision, fully in accordance with the development vector chosen by the city’s authorities. Automation, ecology and technology of the new transport type will provide Dubai with the opportunity to create a stable passenger and freight transportation system and avoid the infinite process of modernizing outdated transport based on combustion engines, manual control and “paper” information flow.

Source of information