Dubai – little more than a fishing village along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf some fifty years ago – is today a booming city of 1.5 million residents with a driverless metro that is shaping its future in a more sustainable way. The nearby capital of the United Arab Emirates is Abu Dhabi, where a modest podcar system runs. Both advanced transit projects are drawing the attention of officials from throughout a region known for a deep urban history and modern energy wealth.

An 11-kilometer, $223 million APM recently opened at a university campus in Riyadh with impressive speed by Ansaldo. A smart (4km) circulator is underway by Bombardier for $241 million within a new financial district. A new monorail serving Muslim pilgrim visiting Makah and Medina should soon start driverless operation with Thales controls. A $96-million APM contract was recently awarded to Bombardier for a 1.5-kilometer APM at Jeddah Airport. Transit has come to the Arabian peninsula, and it is increasingly automated.

Oil-Financed Podcars? While India and China look west to this region rich with oil and natural gas, Europe looks to the east and calls it the Middle East. Those who have shed Eurocentric views prefer the term Middle World – for it was in the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia that the earliest towns and cities emerged.

In many countries of this complex and sophisticated part of the world, energy wealth has generated high standards of living and consumption. This all too often means massive street and highway congestion and sprawled cities that in the long run are simply not sustainable. 

It was these problems that led Dubai to switch to a transit-oriented development strategy about a decade ago, and the results are impressive. Contracts were signed in 2005 and the first section of its driverless metro opened in 2009. A very international team of French planners and engineers, Japanese manufacturers, and British operators have moved the ambitious project forward in steps that are bold and inspiring. The share of travel by transit has already risen from about 2% to 6%, today with a goal of 34% 2020. 

A more ambitious vision to move away from auto addiction motivated the design of the Masdar district in Abu Dhabi. With guidance from Britain’s Norman Foster, planners are systematically trying to recapture the traditional desert patterns of dense, pedestrian-oriented, low-rise cities. For this district destined to house 50,000 jobs and 40,000 residents, cars are intercepted at several parking garages. Circulation within Masdar is by foot, tram and podcars in the basement level of a comprehensively planned district.

The Future is in Decisions of Today

Many around the globe are watching these bold projects unfold, but especially those from the Middle World. Cairo, Istanbul and Tehran began their metros in the 1980s. Ankara followed in the 1990s. Algiers started in 2005. Baghdad, Damascus, Isfahan, Jeddah, Kuwait, Mashhad, Riyadh and many others have rail transit plans. Qatar, the UAE and other small countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council alone represent a rail market of over $100 billion. 

How much of this rail with be smart (automated) and smarter (networked, express-service PRT) remains to be seen. As planners monitor projects in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, those who attend PCC5 in Stockholm this September will no doubt be inspired to move this momentum to a more intelligent level.