How will the new Salik toll gates lessen traffic on important routes in Dubai?
According to the most recent notification from RTA, the gates will be open by November of this year.
By November of this year, the two new toll gates—one at Business Bay Crossing on Al Khail Road and the other at Al Safa South on Sheikh Zayed Road between Al Meydan Street and Umm Al Sheif Street—that were unveiled on Friday will be open for business.
The new toll gates would "streamline traffic flows on Dubai's roads by rerouting traffic to alternative traffic corridors such as Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Road, Dubai - Al Ain Road, Ras Al Khor Road, and Al Manama Street," according to the highways and Transport Authority (RTA).
According to RTA, these are the immediate implications of the new toll gates:
Salik at the Business Bay Crossing will support:
- traffic from Jebel Ali being rerouted via Emirates Roads and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed
- Reducing traffic on Al Khail Road by as much as 15%
- lowering traffic on Al Rebat Street by as much as 16 percent
- 5% decrease in traffic levels on Financial Center Street
- Reducing the daily travel time by 20,000 hours in both directions on the congested stretch of Al Khail Road between Al Rebat and Ras Al Khor Streets
Al Safa South Salik is expected to produce:
- 15% less traffic turning right from Sheikh Zayed Road onto Al Meydan Street
- a about 42% decrease in traffic flow from Al Meydan and Al Safa Streets to Sheikh Zayed Road
- decreasing the amount of traffic on Sheikh Zayed Road by 4% between Financial Center and Latifa Bint Hamdan Streets
- boosting by 4% the usage of Al Asayel and First Al Khail Streets.
HELPING WITH THE ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE
According to Mattar Al Tayer, director general of RTA and chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, "toll gates are part of transport policies aimed at supporting roads infrastructure and public transport projects by distributing traffic across the entire road network."
"The current toll gates have resulted in a reduction of 6 million hours of travel time in Dubai annually, a 26% decrease in traffic volumes on the Al Maktoum and Al Garhoud bridges, a 24% decrease in travel times on Sheikh Zayed Road and Al Ittihad Street, and a 9 million increase in mass transit users annually," he continued.
Policies imposing traffic tolls also incentivize people to switch to public transportation. According to the RTA, it executed massive road improvements worth more than Dh146 billion between 2006 and 2023. Among these projects was Dubai Metro, the longest driverless metro network in the world, which has carried over 2 billion passengers since September 2009.
ALMOST 539 MILLION TAXIS
The RTA implemented Dubai's automatic road toll collecting system, known as Salik (Arabic for "seamless mobility") in 2007.
Salik became a public joint stock company (PJSC) in June 2022. Approximately 539 million trips were recorded via Salik's eight toll gates that year, which are positioned at key intersections, particularly on Sheikh Zayed Road, which is thought to be the primary thoroughfare in the city.
