The emirates of Ajman and Abu Dhabi have been linked by a new bus service.
The service, run by Al Ghazal Transport Company, builds on existing services which run from Al Ain, Dubai and Sharjah to the capital of the UAE.
An official of Al Ghazal said that the Ajman service was opened recently and would be fully operational as per an agreement with Ajman Transport.
"We have not yet started regular service because parking and office facilities are yet to be created," said the official.
"In Ajman, other public buses wait a long time - to get as many passengers as possible. We have even found that we were getting one or two passengers who had been advised to take the Abu Dhabi bus from Sharjah. That service runs every 45 minutes - we are sure our Ajman to Abu Dhabi service will do well," the official said.
Al Ghazal Transport has joint venture agreements with Dubai Transport and Sharjah Transport to run a shuttle bus service to the other emirates.
Nael Al Fakih, the company's marketing manager, said: "Last week we announced the AjmanAbu Dhabi bus service between 7am to 9pm.
"As our bus services from Dubai and Sharjah are doing very well, we want to add more emirates to our route map." Talking about the fares, he said: "For the Dubai-Abu Dhabi bus service we charge Dh15 per ticket and for the return ticket from Abu Dhabi to Dubai the charge is Dh16." "The one dirham difference in the fare for the same distance is due to market demands," the marketing manager claimed.
"We hope to add Fujairah, Umm Al Quwain and Ras Al Khaimah to our route network in future," he said.
The Ajman buses start their run near the parking area at the Indian International School and take passengers to the Abu Dhabi Taxi Station.
"If traffic is normal it will not take more than two hours to reach the destination. A one-way ticket will be Dh25, the same rate we charge for Sharjah-Abu Dhabi,"Al Fakih added.
"As the old and unmetered taxis, which do shuttle service from Ajman to Abu Dhabi, will be phased out in the near future, the bus service will become more popular," he said.
Ajman recently launched a drive to introduce metered taxis.
By VM Sathish
© Emirates Today 2006
