Trains will run at 10-minute intervals.
On Aug. 30, 2009, Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman and Executive Director of Dubai's Roads and Transportation Authority, said Dubai will spend Dh12.5 billion ($3.4 billion) more than originally budgeted for the metro system, for a total of Dh28 billion, or $7.62 billion, just for the Red and Green lines. A third, Purple Line, is planned. Officially, design changes and line extensions accounted for the cost increases.
Dubai Metro will be using trains built by Japanese manufacturer Kinki Sharyo. Some 87, five-car trains will run along the two lines. Each train has a capacity of 643 passengers (seated and standing). Trains will be divided into three social classes--Gold Class, Women and Children class, and regular Silver Class, or economy, a reflection of the United Arab Emirates' still-stilted segregationist tradition.
Currently, the world's longest pilotless mass-transit metro system is Vancouver's SkyTrain. Dubai's metro won't become the longest automated system until its second line is fully operational.
Architecture and Jobs
The Dubai Metro is aesthtetically designed around four elements--air, earth, fire and water, with its stations' mix of modernist and traditional architecture reflecting the four themes. The stations' shell-shaped roofs, for example, invoke Dubai's pear-diving heritage.That the system is pilotless doesn't mean it isn't a jobs trove. The Red Line alone is employing 1,500 people, from technical engineers to cleaners, 30 percent of whom are required to be local Emiratis (the United Arab Emirates' population is almost two-thirds foreign).