DUBAI- The Dubai Taxi Corporation (DTC) at the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has increased the number of school buses in operation during the upcoming school year 2021-2022 to as many as 440.

Beefing up the fleet will provide safe and smooth school transport services for students and encourage parents to switch to school buses rather than use private vehicles to pick up and drop their children.

Mansour Rahma Al Falasi, CEO of the Dubai Taxi Corporation, said, "The Dubai Taxi Corporation is making exceptional efforts to further enhance the confidence of parents in our school transport services. The DTC has taken extensive precautionary measures to ensure the safety of students such as sanitising school buses before and after the boarding of students and limiting the usable seats to 50 percent of the capacity.

Through these measures, we intend to comply with the local and global practices of curbing the spread of COVID-19, and ensure that students are well protected and feel happy during their journeys from and to schools." "The total number of students registered for the school transport service has reached 7,300 serviced by 440 DTC school buses.

We signed contracts with 22 schools in Dubai, which now use quality school transport services. The success of the service is also attributed to the careful selection of highly competent drivers and attendants, who have been well-trained in their professions.

They have been qualified on the handling of emergency cases and certified on First Aid from the Dubai Corporation for Ambulance Services, and attended other training programmes aimed to provide exceptional service to students," he added.

"The school buses are fitted with hi-tech devices for monitoring and tracking both buses and students, and accordingly improve the security and safety of the service. Devices include cameras, sensors to ensure no student is left behind in the bus, an emergency button to communicate with the control centre, a GPS-based electronic tracking system, Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) system, and an engine self-extinguishing system. All these features have been selected to conform to the highest global safety standards," Al Falasi explained.

"To request the service and detailed information, parents are advised to log in to; which will also assist them with the online payment. Through this portal, parents can track the movement of the bus and students and figure out the pick-up and drop-off points. It also contains an indicator to measure the happiness and satisfaction of parents."

© Copyright Emirates News Agency (WAM) 2021.