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Roads and Transport Authority - Majdi Abu Zaid: The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) announced that its Public Transport Agency has achieved a Bus Operation Rate as high as 89% during the first half of this year, serving 66,500,269 riders during this period. The achievement echoes RTA's endeavours to implement its strategy of increasing public transport ridership, reducing the use of private vehicles, alleviating snarls, and enhancing safety & environmental sustainability.
"The Bus Operation Rate Index is one of the indicators of the availability of the fleet's buses and their readiness for service during peak hours; which reflects to a great extent the effectiveness of maintenance operations conducted to buses to keep them ready for offering seamless services to clients," said Abdullah Al Maazami, Director of Maintenance & Services, RTA Public Transport Agency.
"Studies and benchmarks of the best global practices of the industry reveal that the internationally acknowledged standard of the Bus Operation Rate is 85%; which is considered by the World Bank as ideal and good under all conditions. However, this rate drops sometimes in developing countries to 75%, whereas in cities like Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, Hong Kong, London, Madrid, Montreal, Paris, Rome and Sydney (which combined operate 25 thousand buses lifting about 6 billion persons per annum) is 84.3%. So the rate we have achieved reflects the rise of our bus operation rates to record levels worldwide," noted Al Maazami.
"The Maintenance & Services Department at the RTA, which operates 24/7, is keen on achieving the highest efficiency of our bus fleet by implementing preventive, forecast and corrective maintenance programs to reduce operational costs, and ensure the optimal use of our buses, considering them part of the core assets of the RTA," he concluded.
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© Press Release 2015
