As well as being home to the tallest building in the world, Dubai has 17 skyscrapers taller than The Shard in London – more than any other city in the world.
Dubai now also has a similarly futuristic and record breaking driverless metro system, the design and construction of which is reported in the latest issue of ICE’s Civil Engineering journal.
Investing in the future
The emirate is still dominated by the car, but with heavy population growth projected it has invested £4.8 billion in upgrading its public transport with this two-line network.
According to programme director Matthew Botelle of Parsons, the metro has been designed to provide ‘unparalleled levels of customer comfort and finishing, together with the frequency, punctuality and coverage to meet future strategic needs and ambitions.’
A modern metro system
The metro’s second line opened towards the end of last year, bringing the total extent to 75 km and making it the world’s longest fully automated metro system. Fleets of driverless, air-conditioned five-car trains can carry up to 25,700 passengers per hour in each direction.
Keeping their cool
Most of the 47 stations are at or above ground level and feature an impressive aluminium and glass ‘clam shell’ design. With average summer temperatures in excess of 40 C, these and the 12 underground stations are all air-conditioned via a district cooling system which supplies 60,000 tonnes of water chilled to 4.8 C.
Find out more
For more information please contact the ICE Proceedings editor Simon Fullalove on +44 (0)20 7665 2448 or at editor@ice.org.uk.